lede

American  

[leed] / lid /

Or lead

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.

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Etymology

Origin of lede

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”)

Explanation

In news reporting, the lede is the main idea in the first few lines of a story. Most writers work hard to make the lede interesting and accurate. While this word is sometimes spelled lead, and either way rhymes with reed, it's especially common in American journalism to use lede. The phrase "to bury the lede" means to unwittingly neglect to emphasize the very most important part of the story — a no-no in journalism. The unusual spelling comes from an attempt to distinguish the word from the "metal" meaning of lead, which rhymes with bed.

Example Sentences

The headlines from the Federal Open Market Committee’s policy-decision meeting this coming week will, to use journalists’ jargon, likely bury the lede.

From Barron's • Oct. 24, 2025

You can’t accuse those who title “NOVA” episodes of burying the lede with “Ancient Desert Death Trap.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025

I have always wanted to write a headline or lede like that one.

From Salon • Feb. 17, 2023

Dylan can write what journalists call a great lede: a first sentence that detonates like a hand grenade.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 27, 2022

Then shall I Herod live in lede And all folk me doubt and drede, And offer to me both gold, riches and meed; Thereto will they be full fain.

From Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse by Various