If you aren’t sure whether to use led or lead as the verb in your sentence, try reading it aloud to yourself. The correct past and past participle of lead is spelled led. The homophonic confusion leads to homographic confusion, and you will therefore occasionally see lead in constructions where led is called for (as in, “She lead the ducklings to safety” instead of “She led the ducklings to safety”). To this moderately convoluted situation, add the past tense and past participle of the verb lead, which is led and pronounced like the metal noun lead with a short e. The verb lead is pronounced /LEED/, with a long e the noun that refers to a position or advantage is also pronounced /LEED/, with a long e the noun that refers to the metal, however, is pronounced /LED/, with a short e. There are several unrelated nouns spelled lead: one most commonly refers to a metal (as in, "The paint was made with lead"), and the other most commonly refers to a position of advantage (as in, "Our team was in the lead"). Lead is both a noun and a verb, as most people know. Or, we should say, there is confusion about the leads and led. However, as long as you keep in mind that the verb ‘lead’ is always spelled ‘led’ in the past tense, you should be able to avoid mistakes.There is some persistent confusion about lead and led. The main problem is that ‘lead’ (the metal) and ‘led’ (the past tense verb) sound the same. (Photo: tec_estromberg/flickr) Lead or Led? In all of these cases, ‘led’ is pronounced to rhyme with ‘red’ and ‘bed’. I had led a quiet life until that fateful day… For example, if we were to rephrase some of the examples above, we could say: ‘Led’ is the past tense (or past participle) of the verb ‘lead’ in all cases. (Photo: B3R3N1C3) Led (Past Tense of ‘Lead’) In these last two cases, ‘lead’ rhymes with ‘red’ and ‘bed’. The graphite in a pencil is known as ‘lead’ as well (this is because people originally thought graphite was a form of black lead). However, an unrelated noun use of ‘lead’ refers to a heavy, soft metal: The computer was missing its lead, so she couldn’t plug it in. Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter! They needed to walk the dog, but they couldn’t find his lead.įurthermore, ‘lead’ is also a term for an electrical wire or cable: The detective solved the case after following several promising leads. Likewise, something that guides, controls or influences something can be described as a ‘lead’: A winning position in a race or competition, for example, is a ‘lead’: Some of the above definitions of ‘lead’ have noun forms, too (also pronounced to rhyme with ‘feed’). (Photo: Stefan Schäfer, Lich/wikimedia) Lead as a Noun (Winning Positions, Cables and Metal) ![]() Other rhymes include ‘Swede’ and ‘tweed’, which gives us an excuse to post this photo of Swedes in tweed. We were leading by two goals at half time.ĭespite the variation, ‘lead’ is always pronounced to rhyme with ‘feed’ when used as a verb. Sometimes, the verb ‘lead’ can also mean ‘occupy a winning position’ or ‘live’: ![]() For example, we could say:Ĭurrent emissions will lead to increased global warming. We can group some of these under the category of guiding, influencing or showing the way to something. But if you follow our ‘lead’ in this blog post, you should feel confident about avoiding errors in the future! Lead as a Verb (Guidance, Control and Winning) The various definitions of ‘lead’ mean it’s easy to make mistakes. However, this second ‘lead’ isn’t pronounced the same way as the first ‘lead’. ![]() ‘Lead’ sounds exactly the same as ‘led’, which is the past tense of ‘lead’.
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