Search the Dictionary

A small channel at the roadside or elsewhere, to lead off surface water. Gutters running with ale. Macaulay.

A halter consisting of a long leather or rope strap and headstall, -- used for leading or tieing a pack animal. [Western U.S.]

tice of making trivial distinctions. The ancient hairsplitting technicalities of special pleading. Charles Sumner.

A strong strap or cord. Especially: (a) A rope or strap, with or without a headstall, for leading or tying a horse. (b) A rope for hanging malefactors; a noose. Shak. No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law. Trumbull.

To lead, guide, or assist with the hand; to conduct; as, to hand a lady into a carriage.

toward the driver; as, to haw a team of oxen. To haw and gee, or To haw and gee about, to lead this way and that at will; to lead by the nose; to master or control. [Colloq.]

The most prominent or important member of any organized body; the chief; the leader; as, the head of a college, a school, a church, a state, and the like. "Their princes and heads." Robynson (More's Utopia). The heads of the chief sects of philosophy. Tillotson. Your head I him appoint. Milton.

One who heads a movement, a party, or a mob; head; chief; leader. [R.]

Destitute of a chief or leader. Sir W. Raleigh.

A head or leading man, especially of a village community.

To cover, as a roof, with tiles, slate, lead, or the like. [Obs.]

lting furnace, into which the melted material settles. Hearth ends (Metal.), fragments of lead ore ejected from the furnace by the blast. -- Hearth money, Hearth penny Etym: [AS. heoredhpening], a tax formerly laid in England on hearths, each hearth (in all houses paying the church and poor rates) being taxed at two s…

obsolete, provincial, or colloquial, except in certain nautical phrases; as, to heave the lead; to heave the log.

Leading; controlling; ruling; predominant. "Princelike and hegemonical." Fotherby.

Leadership; preponderant influence or authority; -- usually applied to the relation of a government or state to its neighbors or confederates. Lieber.

A leader in heresy; the chief of a sect of heretics. Bp. Stillingfleet.

The leader or commander of an army; also, a marshal. Blackstone.

A lead-gray sectile mineral. It is a telluride of silver.

a torpid or lethargic state, as certain mammals, reptiles, and insects. Inclination would lead me to hibernate, during half the year, in this uncomfortable climate of Great Britain. Southey.

; to secrete. A city that is set on an hill can not be hid. Matt. v. 15. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid. Shak.