sanguisuge

From Middle English sanguisuge, from Latin sanguisuga, from sanguis (“blood”) + sugere (“to suck”).

sanguisuge (plural sanguisuges)

1. (obsolete, rare) A leech (blood-sucking annelid). [until 1620s]
   • a. 1529?, John Skelton [attributed], “The Image of Ipocrysy”, in The Political Works of Skelton and Donne‎^[1], published 1879, page 408:

     For that blody judge
     And mighty sanguisuge,
     The Pope that is so huge,
     Is ever ther refuge;

   • 1585, Johann Jacob Wecker, translated by John Banister, A compendious chyrurgerie‎^[2], book 3, chapter 14, page 452:

     Proceede to more manifest diminishing of the humor, by bludletting, cupping, or sanguisuges

   • 1628, W. William Folkingham, Panala medica vel sanitatis et longævitatis alumna catholica = The fruitfull and frugall nourse of sound health and long life‎^[3], page 116:

     Can slice a veine, and by the trifid sluce
     Of sanguisuge diminish peccant blood

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

From Latin sanguisuga.

• IPA^(key): /sanɡwiˈsiu̯dʒ(ə)/

sanguisuge (plural sanguisugis) (rare, Late Middle English)

1. leech

• English: sanguisuge (obsolete)

• “sanguisūǧe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 11 December 2018.