lede

noun

1. (obsolete)A man; a person.

   “& after to callice hee [Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey] arriued, / like a noble Leed of high degree, / & then to Turwin soone he hyed, / there he thought to haue found King Henery; […]”

   “Sweet, yes sweet is over (beyond) measure / The marrying for the young lede (people); / Most sweet it is, I say yet (once more), / When it goes with the rede (counsel) of the elders.”

   “Gramércy, liegé King, / This is to me a comforting: / I tell you sickerly / For to have land or lede / Or other riches, so God me speed, / It is too much for me.”

2. (US)The introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper, or a news or other type of article; the lead or lead-in.

   “Readers usually see the lead picture and read its caption first, before reading the lede of the article, so the article lede should not be a repetition of the caption.”

   “"How can Mr. On-line Guy learn to be a journalist if he didn't go through what I went through?" they [newspaper journalists] ask. "I needed the city editor to tell me how to write a graceful sentence, and I was a year into the job before I could craft a decent lede?"”

   “I was thrilled to be in possession of this nugget, which could probably take over the lede of my story. This essentially and truly implicated one of the most respected homicide detectives in Boston, all based on my initial tip.”

   “The lede (as we spell it) story in today's NYT [The New York Times] is all about their new poll showing that [John] McCain is hurting himself, not [Barack] Obama, with the attacks. […] If something's the lede in the NYT, it tends to get discussed on cable TV all day, etc.”

   “Like all forms of writing, there's no hard and fast rule about what makes a great lede. A good lede changes depending on the story you're writing. […] Ledes vary wildly, but you'll start to notice patterns and, more importantly, what kinds of ledes you like and feel are effective.”

verb

1. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of lead (“to guide”).

adj

1. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, not-comparable)Initialism of live end dead end.