Lead or leed?
lead is a noun meaning “A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element, having a bright, bluish color, but…”; leed is a noun meaning “Language; tongue”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) lead is about 302 times as common as leed.
What is the difference between lead and leed?
| lead | leed | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb, adjective | noun |
| Meaning | A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished; both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity. It is… A plummet or mass of lead attached to a line, used in sounding depth at sea or to estimate velocity in knots To cover, fill, or affect with lead | ScotlandLanguage; tongue ScotlandA national tongue (contra a foreign language) A strain in a rhyme, song, or poem; refrain; flow |
| Example | This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines | none recorded |
| Forms | leads | leeds lede |
| Pronunciation | /ˈlɛd/ [ˈlɛd] /ˈliːd/ | /liːd/ |
| In writing | 158 times per million words | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: lead and leed in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of lead and leed
lead
- 1
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…
- 2
To cover, fill, or affect with lead
continuous firing leads the grooves of a rifle
- 3
To guide or conduct with the hand, or by means of some physical contact connection
a father leads a child
- 4
The act of leading or conducting; guidance; direction, course
to take the lead
- 5
Foremost
The contestants are all tied; no one has the lead position
- 6
A plummet or mass of lead attached to a line, used in sounding depth at sea or to estimate velocity in knots
- 7
To place leads between the lines of
to lead a page
- 8
To guide or conduct in a certain course, or to a certain place or end, by making the way known; to show the way, especially by going with or going in advance of; to guide somebody somewhere or to…
The guide was able to lead the tourists through the jungle safely
leed
- 1
ScotlandLanguage; tongue
- 2
A strain in a rhyme, song, or poem; refrain; flow
- 3
Acronym of low-energy electron diffraction
- 4
ScotlandA national tongue (contra a foreign language)
- 5
A constant or repeated line or verse; theme
- 6
ScotlandThe speech of a person, echelon of persons, or class of persons; form of speech; talk; utterance; manner of speaking or writing; phraseology; diction
- 7
Patter; rigmarole
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, lead or leed?
lead appears 158 times per million words; leed about once in every 2 million words.
lead 158 times per million wordsleed about once in every 2 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search lead vs leed?
“lead vs leed” is searched about 320 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“leed vs lead”, “lead or leed”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.