Noun: lead
Sample Sentences
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This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines.
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I would have the tower two stories, and goodly leads upon the top. [1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Building”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:]
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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. [1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:]
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They pumped him full of lead.
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All my life I want money and power
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Respect my mind or die from lead shower [2012, “Backseat Freestyle”, performed by Kendrick Lamar:]
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You must remember to wear your leads.
Nouns inflected like lead
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English led, leed, from Old English lēad (“lead”), from Proto-West Germanic *laud (“lead”), possibly borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸloudom, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow”).
2. Cognate with Scots leid, lede (“lead”), North Frisian lud, luad (“lead”), West Frisian lead (“lead”), Dutch lood (“lead”), Low German Lod (“solder, plummet”), German Lot (“solder, plummet, sounding line”), Swedish lod (“solder, plummet”), Icelandic lóð (“a plumb, weight”), Irish luaidhe (“lead”) Latin plumbum (“lead”), Finnish luoti (“bullet”). Doublet of loth. More at flow.
3. * (graphite in a pencil): Graphite was once believed to be a form of lead; see black lead and plumbago. See: Middle English Nouns '
led', Dutch Nouns '
lood', German Nouns '
Lot', Swedish Nouns '
lod', Icelandic Nouns '
lóð', Irish Nouns '
luaidhe', Latin Nouns '
plumbum', Finnish Nouns '
luoti'.