- [uncountable] (symbol Pb)a chemical element. Lead is a heavy, soft grey metal, used especially in the past for water pipes or to cover roofs.
- Lead exposure can be harmful to everyone, especially young children and babies.
Homophones lead | ledlead ledsee also white leadTopics Physics and chemistryc1/led//led/- lead noun
- Copper piping replaced the use of lead.
- led verb (past tense, past participle of lead1)
- The staircase led to a secret passageway.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- molten
- be made of
- pipe
- piping
- paint
- …
- [countable, uncountable] the thin black part of a pencil that marks paper
- The pencil lead broke as I pressed down on the paper.
Word OriginOld English lēad, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch lood ‘lead’ and German Lot ‘plummet, solder’.
Idioms
See lead in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee lead in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishgo down like a lead balloon
- (informal) to be very unsuccessful; to not be accepted by people
- My suggestion went down like a lead balloon.
swing the lead
- (old-fashioned, British English, informal) (usually used in the progressive tenses) to pretend to be ill when in fact you are not, especially to avoid work
- I don't think there's anything wrong with her—she's just swinging the lead.
Check pronunciation:
lead2