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Lead can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.

lead used as an adjective:

  1. Foremost.
    "The contestants are all tied; no one has the lead position."

Adjectives are are describing words. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun (examples: small, scary, silly). Adjectives make the meaning of a noun more precise. Learn more →

lead used as a noun:

  1. A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished; both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity. It is easily fusible, forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredient of solder and type metal. Atomic number 82, Atomic weight 206.4, Specific Gravity 11.37, Symbol Pb (from Latin plumbum).
  2. A plummet or mass of lead attached to a line, used in sounding depth at sea or to estimate velocity in knots.
  3. A thin strip of type metal, used to separate lines of type in printing.
  4. Vertical space in advance of a row or between rows of text. Also known as leading.
    "This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines."
  5. Sheets or plates of lead used as a covering for roofs.
  6. A roof covered with lead sheets or terne plates.
    "I would have the tower two stories, and goodly leads upon the top. — Bacon"
  7. A thin cylinder of black lead or plumbago (graphite) used in pencils.
  8. bullets
    "They filled him full of lead."
  9. The act of leading or conducting; guidance; direction; as, to take the lead; to be under the lead of another.
    "At the time I speak of, and having a momentary lead, . . . I am sure I did my country important service. — Edmund Burke"
  10. Precedence; advance position; also, the measure of precedence; as, the white horse had the lead; a lead of a boat's length, or of half a second; the state of being ahead in a race; the highest score in a game in an incomplete game.
  11. When a runner steps away from a base while waiting for the pitch to be thrown
    "The runner took his lead from first."
  12. (cards and dominoes) The act or right of playing first in a game or round; the card suit, or piece, so played; as, your partner has the lead.
  13. A channel of open water in an ice field.
  14. A lode.
  15. The course of a rope from end to end.
  16. A rope, leather strap, or similar device with which to lead an animal; a leash
  17. In a steam engine, The width of port opening which is uncovered by the valve, for the admission or release of steam, at the instant when the piston is at end of its stroke.
  18. charging lead
  19. The distance of haul, as from a cutting to an embankment.
  20. The action of a tooth, as a tooth of a wheel, in impelling another tooth or a pallet. — Claudias Saunier
  21. Hypothesis that has not been pursued
    "The investigation stalled when all leads turned out to be dead ends."
  22. Information obtained by a detective or police officer that allows him or her to discover further details about a crime or incident.
  23. Potential opportunity for a sale or transaction, a potential customer.
    "Joe is a great addition to our sales team, he has numerous leads in the paper industry."
  24. Information obtained by a news reporter about an issue or subject that allows him or her to discover more details.
  25. The player who throws the first two rocks for a team.
  26. A teaser; a lead in; the start of a newspaper column, telling who, what, when, where, why and how. (Sometimes spelled as lede for this usage to avoid ambiguity.)
  27. The axial distance a screw thread travels in one revolution. It is equal to the pitch times the number of starts.

Nouns are naming words. They are used to represent a person (soldier, Jamie), place (Germany, beach), thing (telephone, mirror), quality (hardness, courage), or an action (a run, a punch). Learn more →

lead used as a verb:

  1. To cover, fill, or affect with lead; as, continuous firing leads the grooves of a rifle.
  2. To place leads between the lines of; as, to lead a page; leaded matter.
  3. To guide or conduct with the hand, or by means of some physical contact connection; as, a father leads a child; a jockey leads a horse with a halter; a dog leads a blind man.
    "If a blind man lead a blind man, both fall down in the ditch. — John Wyclif on Matthew 15:14"
  4. To guide or conduct in a certain course, or to a certain place or end, by making the way known; to show the way, especially by going with or going in advance of, to lead a pupil; to guide somebody somewhere or to bring somebody somewhere by means of instructions. Hence, figuratively: To direct; to counsel; to instruct; as, to lead a traveler.
    "The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way. — Exodus 13:21"
  5. To conduct or direct with authority; to have direction or charge of; as, to lead an army, an exploring party, or a search; to lead a political party; to command, especially a military or business unit
    "Christ took not upon him flesh and blood that he might conquer and rule nations, lead armies, or possess places. — Robert South"
  6. To go or to be in advance of; to precede; hence, to be foremost or chief among; as, the big sloop led the fleet of yachts; the Guards led the attack; Demosthenes leads the orators of all ages.
    "As Hesperus, that leads the sun his way. — Edward Fairfax, translating Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered."
  7. To draw or direct by influence, whether good or bad; to prevail on; to induce; to entice; to allure; as, to lead one to espouse a righteous cause.
    "The evidence leads me to believe he is guilty."
  8. To guide or conduct oneself in, through, or along (a certain course); hence, to proceed in the way of; to follow the path or course of; to pass; to spend. Also, to cause (one) to proceed or follow in (a certain course).
    "That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. — 1 Timothy 2:2"
  9. To begin a game, round, or trick, with; as, to lead trumps
    "He led a double five."
  10. To guide or conduct, as by accompanying, going before, showing, influencing, directing with authority, etc.; to have precedence or preeminence; to be first or chief; — used in most of the senses of the transitive verb.
  11. To be ahead of others, e.g., in a race
  12. To have the highest interim score in a game
  13. To be more advanced in technology or business than others
  14. To tend or reach in a certain direction, or to a certain place; as, the path leads to the mill; gambling leads to other vices.
    "The mountain-foot that leads towards Mantua. — Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, V-ii"
  15. To lead off or out, to go first; to begin.
  16. To produce.
    "The shock led to a change in his behaviour."
  17. To step off base and move towards the next base.
    "The batter always leads off base."
  18. To aim in front of a moving target, in order that the shot may hit the target as it passes.

Verbs are action words and state of being words. Examples of action words are: ran, attacking, dreamed. Examples of "state of being" words are: is, was, be. Learn more →

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What type of word is lead?

As detailed above, 'lead' can be an adjective, a noun or a verb. Here are some examples of its usage:
  1. Adjective usage: The contestants are all tied; no one has the lead position.
  2. Noun usage: This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines.
  3. Noun usage: I would have the tower two stories, and goodly leads upon the top. — Bacon
  4. Noun usage: They filled him full of lead.
  5. Noun usage: At the time I speak of, and having a momentary lead, . . . I am sure I did my country important service. — Edmund Burke
  6. Noun usage: The runner took his lead from first.
  7. Noun usage: The investigation stalled when all leads turned out to be dead ends.
  8. Noun usage: Joe is a great addition to our sales team, he has numerous leads in the paper industry.
  9. Verb usage: If a blind man lead a blind man, both fall down in the ditch. — John Wyclif on Matthew 15:14
  10. Verb usage: They thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill. — Luke 4:29
  11. Verb usage: In thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty. — Milton
  12. Verb usage: The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way. — Exodus 13:21
  13. Verb usage: He leadeth me beside the still waters. — Psalms 23:2
  14. Verb usage: This thought might lead me through the world’s vain mask. Content, though blind, had I no better guide. — Milton.
  15. Verb usage: Christ took not upon him flesh and blood that he might conquer and rule nations, lead armies, or possess places. — Robert South
  16. Verb usage: As Hesperus, that leads the sun his way. — Edward Fairfax, translating Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered.
  17. Verb usage: And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. — Leigh Hunt
  18. Verb usage: The evidence leads me to believe he is guilty.
  19. Verb usage: He was driven by the necessities of the times, more than led by his own disposition, to any rigor of actions. — Eikon Basilike
  20. Verb usage: Silly women, laden with sins, led away by divers lusts. — 2 Timothy 3:6.
  21. Verb usage: That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. — 1 Timothy 2:2
  22. Verb usage: Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse A life that leads melodious days. — Alfred Tennyson
  23. Verb usage: You remember . . . the life he used to lead his wife and daughter. — Dickens
  24. Verb usage: He led a double five.
  25. Verb usage: The mountain-foot that leads towards Mantua. — Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, V-ii
  26. Verb usage: The shock led to a change in his behaviour.
  27. Verb usage: The batter always leads off base.

Unfortunately, with the current database that runs this site, I don't have data about which senses of lead are used most commonly. I've got ideas about how to fix this but will need to find a source of "sense" frequencies. Hopefully there's enough info above to help you understand the part of speech of lead, and guess at its most common usage.

Word Type

For those interested in a little info about this site: it's a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for - just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn't be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary - which is now in the public domain. However, after a day's work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary - which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it's not properly structured for parsing. That's when I stumbled across the UBY project - an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I'm happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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