Word.ws English Dictionary

letch

/lɛt͡ʃ/

letch noun: strong desire; passion. Also the alternative form of lech.

Noun (1)

letch (plural letches)

  1. (archaic) Strong desire; passion.
    • Some people have a letch for unmasking impostors, or for avenging the wrongs of others.1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley (review)
  2. (informal) A lecher.

Noun (2)

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.

Also used as

letch is also the alternative form of lech.

letch is also the alternative form of leach.

Forms of letch

Noun
pluralletches
alternative formlech
Verb
third-person singular presentletches
present participleletching
past participleletched
pastletched

Origin of letch

See lech, lecher.

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

Words formed from letch

Words that rhyme with letch

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about letch

What does letch mean?
Letch means strong desire; passion.
What part of speech is letch?
Letch is a noun.
How do you pronounce letch?
Letch is pronounced /lɛt͡ʃ/.
What is the plural of letch?
The plural of letch is letches.

Words near letch in the dictionary

  1. let-ups
  2. Let. Jer.
  3. letable
  4. Letby
  5. Letca
  6. letch
  7. letcha
  8. letched
  9. Letcher
  10. Letcher County
  11. Letchers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: letch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-letch.wav.

Cite this entry: “letch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/letch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.