lede

Meaning

Noun

• A man; a person.
• The introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper or other news article; the lead or lead-in.

Origin

• From Middle English lede, leode, from three closely related words:
• Old English lēod;
• Old English lēoda, related to lēod; and
• Old English lēode, originally the plural of lēod.
• Lēod is derived from Proto-West Germanic *liud(i), from Proto-Germanic *liudiz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁léwdʰis, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lewdʰ-.
• The English word is cognate with Dutch lieden, lui, German Leute, Norwegian lyd, Polish lud, Russian люди, West Frisian lie.
• A deliberate misspelling of lead, originally used in instructions given to printers to indicate which paragraphs constitute the lede, intended to avoid confusion with the word lead which may actually appear in the text of an article. Compare dek (modified from deck) and hed (from head).
• See lead.