leach
/liːt͡ʃ/noun, verb
leach is spelled L-E-A-C-H: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,906th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “leach vs leech” about 2,900 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, leach means “A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of leach is leaches.
How many letters and syllables are in leach?
| Letters | 5: L-E-A-C-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.8 times per million words; the 20,906th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is leach?
Leach appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,906th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce leach?
- US /liːt͡ʃ/
Leach has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-leach.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with leach
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: leech (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: leech.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with leach?
5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as leach from its last stressed vowel (/itʃ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: chela.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of leach
- leaches plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- leaching participle, present
- leached participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does leach mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
- 2
A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
- 3
Alternative spelling of leech.
- 4
A jelly-like sweetmeat popular in the fifteenth century.
verb
- 1
To purge a soluble matter out of something by the action of a percolating fluid.
Heavy rainfall can leach out minerals important for plant growth from the soil.
- 2
To part with soluble constituents by percolation.
The gangue was leached to recover minerals left behind by the original technology.
- 3
To bleed; to seep.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Leach in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to purge a soluble matter out of something:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | auswaschen, auslaugen |
| Portuguese | lixiviar |
| Spanish | lixiviar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does leach come from?
From Middle English leche (“leachate; sluggish stream”), from Old English *lǣċ, *lǣċe (“muddy stream”), from Proto-Germanic *lēkijō (“a leak, drain, flow”) (compare Proto-Germanic *lekaną (“to leak, drain”)), from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to leak”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).