lede

or lead

[ leed ]

noun

1. Journalism.
   1. a short summary serving as an introduction to a news story, article, or other copy.
   2. the main and often most important news story.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lede¹

First recorded in 1950–55; altered spelling of lead ¹( def ) (in the journalism sense “short introductory summary”), used in the printing trades to distinguish it from the homograph lead ²( def ) (in the sense “thin strip of type metal for increasing the space between lines of type”)

Example Sentences

At the same time, we asked a group of ordinary people on the website Amazon Mechanical Turk to rate the accuracy of just the headline and lede of those articles without doing any additional research.

From Time

Bracy talked about learning from Jack about how to write a wire story on deadline, how he always knew just what detail to put into the lede.

From Washington Post

Either the Times buried the lede, or the perils of “oversharing” is the lede.

From The Daily Beast

That can mean rewriting wire copy to put the part most embarrassing to Democrats in the lede.

From The Daily Beast

And another story today at the Jewish Press, under a credulous headline, admitted the story might not be right in its lede.

From The Daily Beast

The buried lede in this intriguing story on how Tyrannosaurus Rex consumed its legendary prey?

From The Daily Beast

Enrico Caruso, August 3, 1921--above the fold, the off-lede, as we call it, on the far left-hand column.

From The Daily Beast

And lede e nether figure stonde still euer-more til ou haue ydo.

From Project Gutenberg

That is openede thus; lede the rote of o quadrat into the rote of the oer quadrat, and an wolle e meene shew.

From Project Gutenberg

The point of land near the house of Lede, just below Drontheim.

From Project Gutenberg

Her bones were closid in lede, and withyn that bones were closyd yn lether.

From Project Gutenberg

Geta lede hrewic heldon, the Getas held the place of corpses (lay dead upon it), 1215; pret.

From Project Gutenberg