led
verb
simple past tense and past participle of lead.
led
1 American
[led]
/ lɛd /
verb
LED
2
American
[el-ee-dee, led]
/ ˈɛlˌiˈdi, lɛd /
noun
LED
1
British
abbreviation
led
2
British
/ lɛd /
verb
LED
Scientific
/ ĕl′ē-dē′,lĕd /
-
Short for light-emitting diode. An electronic semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. They are considerably more efficient than incandescent bulbs, and rarely burn out. LEDs are used in many applications such as flat-screen video displays, and increasingly as general sources of light.
-
See also semiconductor laser
Other Word Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Transportation equipment led the increase by rising 2.3% after falling the prior two months.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
He said controversy about his work had led to "an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack".
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
Experts told MarketWatch that the reasons are structural and decades in the making: The 2008 financial downturn led to tightened underwriting standards, making it more difficult for young people to qualify for mortgages.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
That result led the researchers toward indigo light, which is capable of passing through the lens while still activating the biological pathway they were investigating.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
The drums that had led me here blasted from one of the cars in the lot and my heartbeat fell into rhythm with them.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
In those experiments, they used an LED, an incoherent light source, to produce polarization-entangled photons.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
The roll-up doors will allow cars to be driven inside and a wall of high-resolution LED panels will project backgrounds in real-time 3-D environments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Meta glasses have a built-in LED light which blinks when they are recording images and cannot be turned off.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
It uses a string of LED lights laid along the track to signal to an athlete the exact rhythm he needs to break a record.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
His little phosphor LED showed the dust snake slither where the copper cables had gone before him.
From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
