[f. BLOOD sb. + SUCKER: cf. prec.]
1. An animal that sucks blood; esp. the leech.
1387. Trevisa, Higden, Rolls Ser. IV. 243. Virgill þrewe a goldene blood soukere in to þe botme of a pitte.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helth (1541), 61. Evacuation by wormes founde in waters called bloudde suckers, or leaches.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633), 66. If one haue drunke a Horseleech, or Bloudsucker.
1698. A. Van Leeuwenhoek, in Phil. Trans., XX. 174. A small Gnat, of that sort that … are no Blood-Suckers.
1840. E. Napier, Scenes & Sp. For. Lands, I. Pref. 32. The blood-sucker, a large kind of lizard, though perfectly harmless, is so called from his ferocious appearance and bloodstained countenance.
† 2. One who draws or sheds the blood of another; a blood-thirsty or blood-guilty person. Obs.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 92. He hath reserued this time to hymself, when he will reward the bloud suckers.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 315. The seuenth bloud-sucker after beastlie Nero, was Decius.
a. 1659. Cleveland, On O. P. Sick, in Craik, II. 31. Fall Thou subtle bloodsucker, thou cannibal!
3. fig. One who extorts or preys upon another’s money or substance; an extortioner; a sponger.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 13. I … cast my Eye upon a certain Tax-gatherer … ask’d the Devil, whether they had not of that sort of Blood-suckers among the rest, in their Dominions.
1724. Swift, Wks. (1841), II. 3. While there is a silver sixpence left, these blood-suckers will never be quiet.
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, xx. 276. A floating population … of pirates and those bloodsuckers who lived upon them.
