Black lead, graphite or plumbago; -- so called from its leadlike
appearance and streak. [Colloq.] -- Coasting lead, a sounding lead
intermediate in weight between a hand lead and deep-sea lead. -- Deep-
sea lead, the heaviest of sounding leads, used in water exceeding a
hundred fathoms in depth. Ham. Nav. Encyc. -- Hand lead, a small lead
use for sounding in shallow water. -- Krems lead, Kremnitz lead [so
called from Krems or Kremnitz, in Austria], a pure variety of white
lead, formed into tablets, and called also Krems, or Kremnitz, white,
and Vienna white. -- Lead arming, tallow put in the hollow of a
sounding lead. See To arm the lead (below). -- Lead colic. See under
Colic. -- Lead color, a deep bluish gray color, like tarnished lead. --
Lead glance. (Min.) Same as Galena. -- Lead line (a) (Med.) A dark line
along the gums produced by a deposit of metallic lead, due to lead
poisoning. (b) (Naut.) A sounding line. -- Lead mill, a leaden
polishing wheel, used by lapidaries. -- Lead ocher (Min.), a massive
sulphur-yellow oxide of lead. Same as Massicot. -- Lead pencil, a
pencil of which the marking material is graphite (black lead). -- Lead
plant (Bot.), a low leguminous plant, genus Amorpha (A. canescens),
found in the Northwestern United States, where its presence is supposed
to indicate lead ore. Gray. -- Lead tree. (a) (Bot.) A West Indian name
for the tropical, leguminous tree, Leucæna glauca; -- probably so
called from the glaucous color of the foliage. (b) (Chem.) Lead
crystallized in arborescent forms from a solution of some lead salt, as
by suspending a strip of zinc in lead acetate. -- Mock lead, a miner's
term for blende. -- Red lead, a scarlet, crystalline, granular powder,
consisting of minium when pure, but commonly containing several of the
oxides of lead. It is used as a paint or cement and also as an
ingredient of flint glass. -- Red lead ore (Min.), crocoite. -- Sugar
of lead, acetate of lead. -- To arm the lead, to fill the hollow in the
bottom of a sounding lead with tallow in order to discover the nature
of the bottom by the substances adhering. Ham. Nav. Encyc. -- To cast,
or heave, the lead, to cast the sounding lead for ascertaining the
depth of water. -- White lead, hydrated carbonate of lead, obtained as
a white, amorphous powder, and much used as an ingredient of white
paint.
Lead, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Leaded; p. pr. & vb. n. Leading.] 1. To
cover, fill, or affect with lead; as, continuous firing leads the
grooves of a rifle.
2. (Print.) To place leads between the lines of; as, to lead a page;
leaded matter.
Lead (ld), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Led (ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Leading.] [OE.
leden, AS. ldan (akin to OS. ldian, D. leiden, G. leiten, Icel. leða,
Sw. leda, Dan. lede), properly a causative fr. AS. liðan to go; akin to
OHG. ldan, Icel. lða, Goth. leiþan (in comp.). Cf. Lode, Loath.] 1. To
guide or conduct with the hand, or by means of some physical contact or
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.