Lede

Pronunciation

• enPR: lÄ“d, IPA: /liːd/

From Middle English lede, leode, from Old English lēode ("men, people"), lēod ("man"). More at leod.

Alternative forms

• leode, ledd, leude, lued, lud, lude, led
• leid, leyd, leed Scotland

Full definition of lede

Noun

1. (Now chiefly UK dialectal, singular) A man; person.
2. (chiefly UK dialectal, Scotland, collective plural) Men; people, folk.
• 2012, Yahoo! Canada Answers - Is Jesus God? Did Jesus ever claim to be God?:If Jesus were not God, He would have told lede to not worship Him, just as the errand-ghost in Bring to Lightings did.
3. (UK dialectal, Scotland, singular) A people or nation.
4. (Now chiefly UK dialectal, plural) Tenements; holdings; possessions.

Derived terms

• ledeless
• ledely
• leden
• ledish

Mid-20th century neologism from a deliberate misspelling of lead (reverting to its archaic, phonetic spelling – compare Middle English below), intended to avoid confusion with its homograph meaning a strip of type metal used for positioning type in the frame.

WOTD 2000

Compare hed ("headline").

Alternative forms

• lead

Noun

1. (chiefly US, journalism) The introductory paragraph(s) of a newspaper or other news article.

Usage notes

Usage seems mostly confined to the U.S.

Current citations in Wiktionary, listed , are from US sources. The only occurrence found in 2008 on The Guardian website is made by the “editor of Guardian America”, saying “The lede (as we spell it) story in today’s NYT is ...” on his op/ed blog. Other occurrences on .co.uk sites all quote the lead/lede Wikipedia articles. Originally only journalistic usage that is now so common in general US English that it is no longer labeled as jargon by major US dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster

Lede in Merriam-Webster Online and American Heritage.

Lede in the American Heritage Dictionary Noted as “sometimes spelled” in 1959, “often spelled” in 1969, and asserted in the 1979 reprint of a 1974 book (see ). In 1990, William Safire was still able to say that "lede" was jargon not listed in regular dictionaries.

Safire 1990: "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

"

Derived terms

Anagrams

• dele
• LEED