Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

sounding lead

American  
[leed] / lid /

noun

  1. sounding line


sounding lead British  
/ lɛd /

noun

  1. a lead weight, usually conical and having a depression in the base for a dab of grease so that, when dropped to the bottom on a sounding line, a sample of sand, gravel, etc, can be retrieved

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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:

A sounding lead, used to measure the sea's depth, was also found.

From Reuters Sep. 20, 2016

Some SO miles from the coast of Japan, the Nipponese man-of-war Manchu dropped its sounding lead.

From Time Magazine Archive

Her superstructure swept away, she had gone down like a sounding lead in deep water.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Sir, at this moment we have 3,508 fathoms of line out, and the ball which draws the sounding lead has not yet touched the bottom; for if so, it would have come up of itself."

From From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon by Verne, Jules

Waist-held in the chains and soused in the fifty-foot-high spray, Joe Byng eyed his sounding lead that swung like a pendulum below him, and named it sacrilege.

From Told in the East by Mundy, Talbot

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training