lede
/lid/noun
lede is spelled L-E-D-E: 4 letters. It appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 76,798th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “lead vs lede” about 1,000 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, lede means “The introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper, or a news or other type of article; the lead or lead-in” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lede is ledes.
How many letters and syllables are in lede?
| Letters | 4: L-E-D-E |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 7 million words; the 76,798th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is lede?
Lede appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 76,798th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce lede?
- UK /liːd/
- US /lid/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-lede.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lede
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: leed, lied (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with lede?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as lede from its last stressed vowel (/id/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: leed, dele, deel.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of lede
- leed
- leod
- ledes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lede mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
USThe introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper, or a news or other type of article; the lead or lead-in.
- 2
obsoleteA man; a person.
adjective
- 1
Initialism of live end dead end.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lede in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper or other news article:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | chapeau |
| German | Lead-Stil |
| Portuguese | lide |
| Spanish | entradilla |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does lede come from?
A deliberate misspelling of lead, originally used in instructions given to printers to indicate which paragraphs constitute the lede, intended to avoid confusion with the word lead which may actually appear in the text of an article. Compare dek (“subhead”) (modified from deck) and hed (“headline”) (from head).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).