Etimology
From Middle English led, leed, from Old English lēad (“lead”), from Proto-West Germanic *laud (“lead”), borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸloudom, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow”). Cognate with Scots leid, lede (“lead”), North Frisian lud, luad (“lead”), West Frisian lead (“lead”), Dutch lood (“lead”), German Lot (“solder, plummet, sounding line”), Swedish lod (“lead”), Icelandic lóð (“a plumb, weight”), Irish luaidhe (“lead”) Latin plumbum (“lead”). Doublet of loth. More at flow. (graphite in a pencil): Graphite was once believed to be a form of lead; see black lead and plumbago.
noun
lead (countable and uncountable, plural leads)
(uncountable) A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished; both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity. It is easily fusible, forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredient of solder and type metal. Atomic number 82, symbol Pb (from Latin plumbum).
(countable, nautical) A plummet or mass of lead attached to a line, used in sounding depth at sea or (dated) to estimate velocity in knots.
A thin strip of type metal, used to separate lines of type in printing.
(uncountable, typography) Vertical space in advance of a row or between rows of text. Also known as leading.
Sheets or plates of lead used as a covering for roofs.
(countable) A roof covered with lead sheets or terne plates.
(countable) A thin cylinder of graphite used in pencils.
(slang) bullets; ammunition.
(medicine, in the plural) X-ray protective clothing lined with lead.
Examples
Synonym: plumbum
This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines.
I would have the tower two stories, and goodly leads upon the top.
These rooms were on a level with the apartments of our friends Bows and Costigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching over the communicating leads, Grady could command the mignonette-box which bloomed in Bows’s window.
They pumped him full of lead.
You must remember to wear your leads.
verb
lead (third-person singular simple present leads, present participle leading, simple past and past participle leaded)
(transitive) To cover, fill, or affect with lead.
(transitive, printing, historical) To place leads between the lines of.
Examples
continuous firing leads the grooves of a rifle.
to lead a page
leaded matter
Etimology
From Middle English leden, from Old English lǣdan (“to lead”), from Proto-West Germanic *laidijan, from Proto-Germanic *laidijaną (“to cause one to go, lead”), causative of Proto-Germanic *līþaną (“to go”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyt- (“to leave, die”). Cognate with West Frisian liede (“to lead”), Dutch leiden (“to lead”), German leiten (“to lead”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål lede (“to lead”), Norwegian Nynorsk leia (“to lead”), Swedish leda (“to lead”). Related to Old English līþan (“to go, travel”).
verb
lead (third-person singular simple present leads, present participle leading, simple past and past participle led)
(heading, transitive) To guide or conduct.
(intransitive) To guide or conduct, as by accompanying, going before, showing, influencing, directing with authority, etc.; to have precedence or preeminence; to be first or chief; — used in most of the senses of the transitive verb.
(heading) To begin, to be ahead.
(transitive) To draw or direct by influence, whether good or bad; to prevail on; to induce; to entice; to allure
(intransitive) To tend or reach in a certain direction, or to a certain place.
To produce (with to).
Misspelling of led.
(transitive) To live or experience (a particular way of life).
Examples
a father leads a child a jockey leads a horse with a halter a dog leads a blind man
If a blind man lead a blind man, both fall down in the ditch.
They thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill.
In thy right hand lead with thee / The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.
As he was going home to the palace, he met an old woman leading a golden goose.
The guide was able to lead the tourists through the jungle safely.
The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
This thought might lead me through the world’s vain mask. Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
A good teacher should lead their students to the right answer.
to lead a political party
to lead the search team
Christ took not upon him flesh and blood that he might conquer and rule nations, lead armies, or possess places.The spelling has been modernized.
The spelling has been modernized.
The evidence leads me to believe he is guilty.
That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse / A life that leads melodious days.
You remember […] the life he used to lead his wife and daughter.
the big sloop led the fleet of yachts; the Guards led the attack; Demosthenes leads the orators of all ages
As Hesperus, that leads the sun his way.
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.
to lead trumps
He led the ace of spades.
The batter always leads off base.
to lead someone to a righteous cause
He was driven by the necessities of the times, more than led by his own disposition, to any rigor of actions.
Silly women, laden with sins, led away by divers lusts.
Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […]. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.
the path leads to the mill; gambling leads to other vices
The mountain-foot that leads towards Mantua.
All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism. That worries the government, which fears that environmental activism could become the foundation for more general political opposition. It is therefore dealing with pollution in two ways—suppression and mitigation.
The shock led to a change in his behaviour.
The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.
Related words
related terms
lad, laddie
noun
lead (countable and uncountable, plural leads)
(countable) The act of leading or conducting; guidance; direction, course
(countable) Precedence; advance position; also, the measure of precedence; the state of being ahead in a race; the highest score in an incomplete game.
(UK, countable) An insulated metallic wire for electrical devices and equipment.
(baseball) The situation where a runner steps away from a base while waiting for the pitch to be thrown.
(uncountable, card games, dominoes) The act or right of playing first in a game or round; the card suit, or piece, so played
(acting, theater) The main role in a play or film; the lead role.
(acting) The actor who plays the main role; lead actor.
(business) The person in charge of a project or a work shift etc.
(countable) A channel of open water in an ice field.
(countable, mining) A lode.
(nautical) The course of a rope from end to end.
A rope, leather strap, or similar device with which to lead an animal; a leash
In a steam engine, the width of port opening which is uncovered by the valve, for the admission or release of steam, at the instant when the piston is at end of its stroke.
(civil engineering) The distance of haul, as from a cutting to an embankment.
(horology) The action of a tooth, such as a tooth of a wheel, in impelling another tooth or a pallet.
Hypothesis that has not been pursued
Information obtained by a detective or police officer that allows him or her to discover further details about a crime or incident.
(marketing) Potential opportunity for a sale or transaction, a potential customer.
Information obtained by a news reporter about an issue or subject that allows him or her to discover more details.
(curling) The player who throws the first two rocks for a team.
(newspapers) A teaser; a lead-in; the start of a newspaper column, telling who, what, when, where, why and how. (Sometimes spelled as lede for this usage to avoid ambiguity.)
An important news story that appears on the front page of a newspaper or at the beginning of a news broadcast
(engineering) The axial distance a screw thread travels in one revolution. It is equal to the pitch times the number of starts.
(music) In a barbershop quartet, the person who sings the melody, usually the second tenor
(music) The announcement by one voice part of a theme to be repeated by the other parts.
(music) A mark or a short passage in one voice part, as of a canon, serving as a cue for the entrance of others.
(engineering) The excess above a right angle in the angle between two consecutive cranks, as of a compound engine, on the same shaft.
(electrical) The angle between the line joining the brushes of a continuous-current dynamo and the diameter symmetrical between the poles.
(electrical) The advance of the current phase in an alternating circuit beyond that of the electromotive force producing it.
Examples
to take the lead
to be under the lead of another
At the time I speak of, and having a momentary lead, […] I am sure I did my country important service.
the white horse had the lead.
to be in the lead
She lost the lead.
Smith managed to extend her lead over the second place to half a second.
Blackburn then regained the lead with a simplest of set-piece goals
The runner took his lead from first.
your partner has the lead
"You make moving pictures. In jungles and places." "That's me. And I've picked you for the lead in my next picture."
John is the development lead on this software product.
The investigation stalled when all leads turned out to be dead ends.
The police have a couple of leads they will follow to solve the case.
Joe is a great addition to our sales team, he has numerous leads in the paper industry.
adjective
lead (not comparable)
(not comparable) Foremost.
Main, principal, primary, first, chief, foremost.
Examples
The contestants are all tied; no one has the lead position.
For the first time ever, the senior architect and lead developer for a key enterprise system on NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover mission shares the secrets to one of the most difficult technology tasks […]
Synonyms: first, front, head, leader, leading
the lead guitarist in band
the lead developer on a software project
Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand's ex-prime minister, has missed a verdict in a negligence trial that could have seen her jailed, prompting the Supreme Court to say it will issue an arrest warrant fearing she is a flight risk, according to the lead judge in the case.
verb
lead
Misspelling of led.