Word.ws English Dictionary

leed

/liːd/

leed noun: language; tongue. Also the alternative spelling of lede.

Noun (1)

leed (plural leeds)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland) Language; tongue.
  2. (Scotland) A national tongue (contra a foreign language).
  3. (Scotland) The speech of a person, echelon of persons, or class of persons; form of speech; talk; utterance; manner of speaking or writing; phraseology; diction.

Noun (2)

leed (plural leeds)

  1. A strain in a rhyme, song, or poem; refrain; flow.
  2. A constant or repeated line or verse; theme.
  3. Patter; rigmarole.

Proper noun capitalized: LEED

LEED

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a system to categorise the level of environmentally sustainable construction in sustainable buildings.

Noun (3) capitalized: LEED

LEED (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of low-energy electron diffraction.

Also used as

leed is also the alternative spelling of lede.

leed is also the obsolete spelling of lead.

Forms of leed

pluralleeds
plurallede

Plural of leed: leeds

Origin of leed

From Middle English lede, shortened variant of leden (“language”), from Old English lēoden (“popular or national language, native tongue”), from Old English lēod (“people, nation”). Cognate with Scots leed (“language”). More at lede.

From Middle English lede, led, leod, variant of Middle English leth, leoth (“song, poem”), from Old English lēoþ (“song, poem, ode, lay, verse”), from Proto-Germanic *leuþą (“song, lay, praise”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēw- (“to sound, resound, sing out”). Cognate with Dutch lied (“song”) and German Lied (“song”), whence the English doublet lied.

See lede.

Words that rhyme with leed

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about leed

What does leed mean?
Leed means language; tongue.
What part of speech is leed?
Leed can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce leed?
Leed is pronounced /liːd/.
What is the plural of leed?
The plural of leed is leeds.

Words near leed in the dictionary

  1. leechless
  2. leechlike
  3. leechline
  4. leechlines
  5. leechy
  6. leed
  7. Leederman
  8. Leedham
  9. Leedom
  10. Leedoms
  11. leeds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leed (page history and authors); LEED (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: “leed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.