Word.ws English Dictionary

leading-string

leading-string noun: strings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.

Noun

leading-string (plural leading-strings)

  1. (historical, plural-normally) Strings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.
    • her lover [...] treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say the truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 396
    • Power is a debt to the people: but as yet we walk with the leading-strings of prejudice, strong to confine the steps, which they never should attempt to guide.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Interview”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 247

Forms of leading-string

pluralleading-strings

Questions about leading-string

What does leading-string mean?
Leading-string means strings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.
What part of speech is leading-string?
Leading-string is a noun.
What is the plural of leading-string?
The plural of leading-string is leading-strings.

Words near leading-string in the dictionary

  1. leading wheels
  2. leading with one's chin
  3. leading woman
  4. leading women
  5. leading-edge
  6. leading-string
  7. leading-strings
  8. Leadingham
  9. Leadinghams
  10. leadingly
  11. leadingness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leading-string (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “leading-string.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leading-string. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.