Lead vs Led

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Lead vs Led Difference
The English language can be funny in the sense that so many words sound the same but they are spelled differently. For instance, we have the words lead and led. What makes this even trickier is that they can be pronounced differently as well.

Lead can take the form of a noun or a verb. As a noun, it is pronounced as led. Lead, as a noun, is a metal used for various purposes. It used to be that soft metal you see inside your pencils, but it has then been changed to graphite due to health and safety reasons. Lead is still being used now for water pipes, bullets, and other stuff. Lead, as a verb, means to be in a top position.

In racing, the one “leading” is the one who has run the fastest wherein everybody else is behind him or her. It is often times used in competitions, but it has now evolved with its wide use. For instance, one can say that he or she is leading a meeting. This means that that person is the one presiding the meeting or facilitating it. He or she plays an important role in the meeting. We can see here that a meeting is not a competition, and so the word lead changes its meaning slightly to accommodate the context.

Led, on the other hand, is actually the past tense of the word “lead”, the verb. In this sense, they do not actually have different meanings. Rather, it is a question of when to use lead and when to use led. Because lead is not a regular verb, an additional “-ed” cannot be added to make it past tense. As such, the spelling of the word changes, just like most irregular verbs. It is important to note that it is only the past tense of the verb of lead and not the noun, as nouns do not have tenses.