leach

/litʃ/

/litʃ/

Other forms: leaching; leached; leaches

When minerals or other materials are pulled out of some substance by a liquid, you can say that they leach from it. A flood can leach important nutrients out of a farmer's field.

In agriculture, when farmers allow cattle to graze too much in one spot, or don't rotate their crops from field to field over the years, they risk having a heavy rain leach nutrients from the soil. Sometimes farmers will use water to deliberately leach unwanted materials, like salt, from a field. The verb leach has an Old English root word, leccan, or "to moisten, water, wet, or irrigate."

Definitions of leach

1. verb

   cause (a liquid) to leach or percolate
   type of:

   remove, take, take away, withdraw

   remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract
2. verb

   remove substances from by a percolating liquid
   “leach the soil”

   synonyms: strip

   type of:

   remove, take, take away, withdraw

   remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract
3. verb

   permeate or penetrate gradually
   “the fertilizer leached into the ground”

   synonyms: percolate

   type of:

   dribble, filter, trickle

   run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream
4. noun

   the process of leaching
   synonyms: leaching

   type of:

   action, activity, natural action, natural process

   a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings)