lead
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lead", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "lead" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "lead" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
lead is aEnglishnoun. It means: 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 othe... Pronounced /lɛd/. It ranks #636 in English word frequency. Often confused with let and LED.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lead |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lɛd/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #636 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lead is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɛd/. Corpus data places it at rank #636 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for lead, with forms such as "elad", "laed", and "leadd". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "let", "LED", "lee", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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”). Cognate with Scots leid, lede (“lead”), North Frisian lud, lu… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is lead, spelled L-E-A-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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).
- 2A plummet or mass of lead attached to a line, used in sounding depth at sea or to estimate velocity in knots.
- 3A thin strip of type metal, used to separate lines of type in printing.
- 4Vertical space in advance of a row or between rows of text. Also known as leading.
- 5Sheets or plates of lead used as a covering for roofs.
- 6A roof covered with lead sheets or terne plates.
- 7A thin cylinder of graphite used in pencils.
- 8Bullets; ammunition.
- 9X-ray protective clothing lined with lead.
Etymology
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”). 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. * (graphite in a pencil): Graphite was once believed to be a form of lead; see black lead and plumbago.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elad,laed,leadd,leda,llead
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for lead
Misspelling Variants of "lead"
Frequency rank: #636 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: