• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: lēd, IPA^(key): /liːd/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /lid/
• Homophones: lead, lied
• Rhymes: -iːd

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],^[1] 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”).^[2] Doublet of leud.

lede (plural lede)

1. (obsolete) A man; a person.
   • p. 1544, “fflodden ffeilde”, in John W[esley] Hales, Frederick J[ames] Furnivall, [Francis James] Child, W[illiam] Chappell, et al., editors, Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript. Ballads and Romances, volume I, London: N[icholas] Trübner & Co., […], published 1867, →OCLC, page 318, lines 9–12:

     & after to callice hee [Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey] arriued, / like a noble Leed of high degree, / & then to Turwin soone he hyed, / there he thought to haue found King Henery; […]

   • 1836, J[oseph] Bosworth, “Friesic”, in The Origin of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages, and Nations: […], London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 72:

     Sweet, yes sweet is over (beyond) measure / The marrying for the young lede (people); / Most sweet it is, I say yet (once more), / When it goes with the rede (counsel) of the elders.

     A translation of part of the first stanza of a song composed c. 1650 by the West Frisian poet Gysbert Japiks (1603–1666): “Swíet, ja swíet is 't, oer 'e míete / 'T Boáskien fóar 'e jonge lie; / Kreftich swíet is 't, sizz' ik jíette, / As it giet mei âlders ríe.”

   • c. 1870s, “Transition English: From the Conquest to Chaucer.—a.d. 1066 to a.d. 1352 [Sir Cleges.]”, in Henry Morley, editor, Shorter English Poems (Cassell’s Library of English Literature), London, Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC, page 28, column 2, lines 409–412:

     Gramércy, liegé King, / This is to me a comforting: / I tell you sickerly / For to have land or lede / Or other riches, so God me speed, / It is too much for me.

     Spelling modernized by the editor from a late-14th – early-15th-century text.

• In modern English, the word is only found as a conscious archaism.

• leed, leod

• leden

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.^[3][4] Compare dek (“subhead”) (modified from deck) and hed (“headline”) (from head).

lede (plural ledes)

2. (chiefly US, journalism) The introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper, or a news or other type of article; the lead or lead-in. [from mid 20th c.]

   Synonym: intro

   • 1979, J. W. Click, Russell N. Baird, Magazine Editing and Production, 2nd edition, Dubuque, Iowa: W[illiam] C. Brown, →ISBN, page 90:

     Readers usually see the lead picture and read its caption first, before reading the lede of the article, so the article lede should not be a repetition of the caption.

   • 1999, Mike Godwin, “Who’s a Journalist?—II: Welcome the New Journalists on the Internet”, in Robert H. Giles, Robert W. Snyder, editors, What’s Next?: Problems & Prospects of Journalism, New Brunswick, N.J., London: Transaction Publishers, published 2001, →ISBN, page 46:

     "How can Mr. On-line Guy learn to be a journalist if he didn't go through what I went through?" they [newspaper journalists] ask. "I needed the city editor to tell me how to write a graceful sentence, and I was a year into the job before I could craft a decent lede?"

   • 2007 February, Brian McGrory, chapter 40, in Strangled, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, page 314:

     I was thrilled to be in possession of this nugget, which could probably take over the lede of my story. This essentially and truly implicated one of the most respected homicide detectives in Boston, all based on my initial tip.

   • 2008 October 15, Michael Tomasky, “Michael Tomasky’s Blog: This Morning’s Stuff You Need to Know”, in The Guardian‎^[3], London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 6 March 2016:

     The lede (as we spell it) story in today's NYT [The New York Times] is all about their new poll showing that [John] McCain is hurting himself, not [Barack] Obama, with the attacks. […] If something's the lede in the NYT, it tends to get discussed on cable TV all day, etc.

   • 2018, Branden Salas, “Reporting for Print Media”, in Basic Concept of Journalism, Waltham Abbey, Essex: Ed-Tech Press, published 2020, →ISBN, page 253:

     Like all forms of writing, there's no hard and fast rule about what makes a great lede. A good lede changes depending on the story you're writing. […] Ledes vary wildly, but you'll start to notice patterns and, more importantly, what kinds of ledes you like and feel are effective.

   • 2019, Naveed Saleh, “Narrative: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends”, in The Writer’s Guide to Self-editing: Essential Tips for Online and Print Publishing, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, part VII (Global Considerations), page 225:

     Here are some different types of ledes: […] · Scenario ledes use narrative elements to describe a place of particular importance to the story. / · Narrative ledes begin at a chronological beginning. […] · First-person anecdotal ledes begin with a relevant anecdote that involves the writer. Service and celebrity pieces often begin with first-person ledes.

• The word, which has entered ordinary usage, was originally journalistic jargon. In 1990, the American author and journalist William Safire (1929–2009) was still able to say: “You will not find this spelling in dictionaries; it is still an insiders' variant, steadily growing in frequency of use. […] Will lede break out of its insider status and find its way into general use? […] To suggest this is becoming standard would be misledeing […] But it has earned its place as a variant spelling, soon to overtake the original spelling for the beginning of a news article.”^[5]

• bury the lede
• lede to kum
• nulede

• Glossary of journalism: Article components

See lead.

lede

1. Obsolete spelling of lead (“to guide”).

• lead paragraph on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “lede”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “lede” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th revised edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN; reproduced on TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.

• Deel, LEED, deel, dele, leed

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪə.də/

lede

1. plural of lid

• IPA^(key): [ˈlɛdɛ]

lede

1. vocative singular of led

• IPA^(key): /ˈleːðə/, [ˈle̝ːð̩], [ˈle̝ːð̩˕˗ˠ]

From Old Norse leiða (“to lead”), from Proto-Germanic *laidijaną (“to lead”), cognate with English lead, German leiten. It is a causative of the verb *līþaną (“to go, pass”).

lede (past tense ledede or ledte, past participle ledet or ledt)

1. to manage, run
2. to head, direct
3. to lead, guide
4. to conduct

From Old Norse leita (“to seek, search”), from Proto-Germanic *wlaitōną, cognate with Old English wlātian (“to look upon”), Gothic 𐍅𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍄𐍉𐌽 (wlaitōn, “to look around”).

lede (past tense ledte, past participle ledt)

1. to look, search for

From Old Norse leiða, derived from the adjective Old Norse leiðr (Danish led (“disgusting”)).

lede c (singular definite leden, not used in plural form)

1. disgust, distaste, loathing

• lyst

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

lede

1. definite of led
2. plural of led

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eːdə

lede

1. (dated or formal) singular past subjunctive of lijden

• deel, dele, edel, leed

lede

1. second-person plural imperative of ler

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛ.de/
• Rhymes: -ɛde
• Hyphenation: lè‧de

lede

1. third-person singular present indicative of ledere

lêde

1. dative singular of lêet

From Old English lēode (“people, men”), plural of lēod, from Proto-West Germanic *liudī, plural of *liud(i), from Proto-Germanic *liudīz, plural of *liudiz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁léwdʰeyes, plural of *h₁léwdʰis.

Akin to Old Frisian liod, Old Saxon liud, Old Norse ljóðr, lýðr, Old High German liut, Dutch lieden.

• led, leed, leede, leyde, leod, leode, leude, lud, lude, lued, lyde
• (early) leoda, leodæ

• IPA^(key): /ˈleːd(ə)/

lede (plural ledes or lede or (early) leden) (poetic)

1. A (male) human; a man:
   1. A vassal or subject.
   2. A servant or retainer.
   3. A ruler; one with governing authority.
2. (collectively) People, folk.
3. A nation; a people.
4. A race or stock; one's kindred.
5. Real estate; owned land.

• English: lede (obsolete)
• Scots: leid

• “lẹ̄d(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

lede

1. Alternative form of led (“lead”)

lede

1. Alternative form of leden (“language”)

lede

1. Alternative form of leden (“to lead”)
   • Perle Section 15. Anonymous 15th century.

     A blysful lyf þou says I lede;

lede

1. Alternative form of leden (“to cover in lead”)

From Old Norse leiða, and Danish lede.

lede (imperative led, present tense leder, passive ledes, simple past and past participle leda or ledet, present participle ledende)

1. to lead
2. to guide

• avlede
• innlede
• ledelse
• ledning

• leie (Nynorsk)

• “lede” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

lede

1. second-person plural imperative of ler

From the nominal use (masculine inflection) of adjective led (“loathsome”), in the more original synonym den lede frestaren (“the loathsome tempter”).

lede

1. definite natural masculine singular of led

lede c

1. the evil one, the loathsome or disgusting one; the devil, Satan

Most commonly as den lede.

• lede fi