lead on
"lead-on" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lead on” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To mislead, to try to make someone believe a lie.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lead-on · lead on · English
lead on · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lead on |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lead on” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lead on is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for lead on in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is lead on, spelled L-E-A-D- -O-N.
Definition
- 1To mislead, to try to make someone believe a lie.
- 2To mislead, to try to make someone believe a lie.
- 3Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lead, on.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lead on appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least you led me on?" said I. / "Yes," she returned, again nodding steadily, "I let you go on."
I thought she really loved me but really she was just leading me on.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.