the.com/bloodsucker
Nature's phlebotomist, minus the license, the consent, and the cotton ball.
means A creature (or person) that drains the vitality from others to feed itself — literally a parasite that feeds on blood, or figuratively someone who exploits others for personal gain.
from A plain, self-explanatory English compound — 'blood' plus 'sucker' — first used for leeches and biting insects, since their feeding method needed no further explanation. By the 1800s the word had crawled into figurative use for usurers, extortionists, and other humans who drain the life out of their victims without the courtesy of fangs.
- leech spit
- contains an anticoagulant so good it bears its genus name, hirudin
- mosquito math
- only females bite, they need blood protein for eggs
- vampire bats
- share regurgitated blood meals with hungry roost mates
- idiom upgrade
- also means a landlord, lawyer, or ruthless creditor