Word.ws English Dictionary

leading on

leading on is the present participle and gerund of lead on.

Meaning of lead on

Verb

lead on (third-person singular simple present leads on, present participle leading on, simple past and past participle led on)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To mislead, to try to make someone believe a lie.
    • "But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least you led me on?" said I. / "Yes," she returned, again nodding steadily, "I let you go on."1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter V, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 73
    1. (idiomatic, transitive) To encourage with the illusion of a romantic relationship.
      • I thought she really loved me but really she was just leading me on.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lead, on.

Questions about leading on

What is leading on the present participle and gerund of?
Leading on is the present participle and gerund of lead on.

Words near leading on in the dictionary

  1. leading men
  2. leading motive
  3. leading motives
  4. leading nowhere
  5. leading off
  6. leading on
  7. leading out
  8. leading question
  9. leading questions
  10. leading rein
  11. leading reins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leading on (page history and authors); lead on (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.

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