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lede

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

4 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lede", 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 "lede" 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 "lede" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

lede is aEnglishnoun. It means: A man; a person. Pronounced /liːd/.

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Key facts for lede
PropertyValue
Headwordlede
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/liːd/
Letters4
Frequency rank#76,937
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of lede in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for lede is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /liːd/. Corpus data places it at rank #76,937 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A man; a person.".

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for lede in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lede, leode (“man; human being, person; lord, prince; God; sir; group, kind; race; a people, nation; human race; land, real property”) [and other forms], from three closely related words: * Old English lēod (“man; chief, leader; (poetic)… 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 lede, spelled L-E-D-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A man; a person.

Etymology

From Middle English lede, leode (“man; human being, person; lord, prince; God; sir; group, kind; race; a people, nation; human race; land, real property”) [and other forms], from three closely related words: * Old English lēod (“man; chief, leader; (poetic) prince; a people, people group; nation”); * Old English lēoda (“man; person; native of a country”), related to lēod; and * Old English lēode (“men; people; the people of a country”), originally the plural of lēod. Lēod is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *liudi, from Proto-Germanic *liudiz (“man; person; men; people”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁léwdʰis (“man, people”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lewdʰ- (“to grow; people”). Doublet of leud. Cognates The English word is cognate with Dutch lieden (“people”), lui(den) (“people”), German Leute (“people”), Norwegian lyd (“people”), Polish lud (“people”), Russian люди (ljudi, “people”), West Frisian lie (“people”).

Frequency rank: #76,937 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lede"?
"lede" is spelled L-E-D-E. The IPA pronunciation is /liːd/.
What does "lede" mean?
As a noun, "lede" means: A man; a person.
How do you pronounce "lede"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "lede" is /liːd/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "lede"?
From Middle English lede, leode (“man; human being, person; lord, prince; God; sir; group, kind; race; a people, nation; human race; land, real property”) [and other forms], from three closely related words: * Old English lēod (“man; chief, leader... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.