leach

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To remove soluble or other constituents from by the action of a percolating liquid.
2. v. To empty; drain: "a world leached of pleasure, voided of meaning” ( Marilynne Robinson).
3. v. To be dissolved or passed out by a percolating liquid.
4. n. The act or process of leaching.
5. n. A porous, perforated, or sievelike vessel that holds material to be leached.
6. n. The substance through which a liquid is leached.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. See leech.
2. To wash or drain by percolation of water; treat by downward drainage: as, to make lye by leaching ashes (the most familiar use of the word); the rains leach a gravelly soil.
3. To remove by percolation; drain away: as, to leach the alkali from wood-ashes.
4. n. A separation of lye, or alkali in solution, as from wood-ashes, by percolation of water.
5. n. The material used for leaching, as wood-ashes.—3. A deep tub with a spigot inserted in the bottom, used in making potash. It holds from 6 to 8 bushels of wood-ashes.
6. n. See leech.
7. n. A dish, of various kinds, served up in slices. It was sometimes a jelly flavored with spices.
8. To cut into slices; slice.
9. n. Same as latch.
10. n. Same as leash.
11. To extract metal from (an ore) by subjecting it to chemical reagents which take the metal into solution.
12. n. A tank in which hot water is passed through ground bark to obtain tannin. Also latch.

Wiktionary

1. n. A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
2. n. A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
3. n. nautical alternative spelling of leech.
4. v. transitive To purge a soluble matter out of something by the action of a percolating fluid.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Naut.) See 3d leech.
2. n. A quantity of wood ashes, through which water passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.
3. n. A tub or vat for leaching ashes, bark, etc.
4. v. To remove the soluble constituents from by subjecting to the action of percolating water or other liquid.
5. v. To dissolve out; -- often used with out.
6. v. To part with soluble constituents by percolation.
7. n. obsolete See leech, a physician.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. cause (a liquid) to leach or percolate
2. v. permeate or penetrate gradually
3. n. the process of leaching
4. v. remove substances from by a percolating liquid