letch

• lech

• IPA^(key): /lɛt͡ʃ/

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• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

See lech, lecher.

letch (plural letches)

1. (archaic) Strong desire; passion.
   • 1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley (review)

     Some people have a letch for unmasking impostors, or for avenging the wrongs of others.

2. (informal) A lecher.

letch (third-person singular simple present letches, present participle letching, simple past and past participle letched)

1. Alternative form of lech (“to behave lecherously”).

From Middle English leche, for example Sandy's Letch located east of Annitsford in North Tyneside.

letch (plural letches)

1. A stream or pool in boggy land.

   The Letch near Killingworth Village flows in two branches: the Longbenton Letch and the Forest Hall Letch.

letch (plural letches)

1. Alternative form of leach.

letch (third-person singular simple present letches, present participle letching, simple past and past participle letched)

1. Alternative form of leach.

• “letch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From Middle English leche (“an infusion”).

• IPA^(key): /lɛt͡ʃ/

letch

1. small beer
   • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY:

     Ty o' letch.

     A drink of small beer.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 53