lede

American  

[leed] / lid /

Or lead

noun

1. Journalism.

   1. a short summary serving as an introduction to a news story, article, or other copy.

   2. the main and often most important news story.

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Etymology

Origin of lede

First recorded in 1950–55; altered spelling of lead ¹ ( def. ) (in the journalism sense “short introductory summary”), used in the printing trades to distinguish it from the homograph lead ² ( def. ) (in the sense “thin strip of type metal for increasing the space between lines of type”)

Explanation

In news reporting, the lede is the main idea in the first few lines of a story. Most writers work hard to make the lede interesting and accurate. While this word is sometimes spelled lead, and either way rhymes with reed, it's especially common in American journalism to use lede. The phrase "to bury the lede" means to unwittingly neglect to emphasize the very most important part of the story — a no-no in journalism. The unusual spelling comes from an attempt to distinguish the word from the "metal" meaning of lead, which rhymes with bed.

Example Sentences

This serves as your lede — the first few sentences.

From MarketWatch • May 19, 2026

“If you were Alan Greenspan,” I wrote in the draft’s lede, “wouldn’t you be worried about the soaring stock market?”

From Barron's • Feb. 27, 2026

You can’t accuse those who title “NOVA” episodes of burying the lede with “Ancient Desert Death Trap.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025

Five years ago, that was the tortured lede of the column that was published in the immediate wake of Bryant’s death.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 26, 2025

The expression lede, in lede, which so often occurs in Sir Tristram, may also have arisen from the Anglo-Saxon form of the word Latin.

From Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Bell, George