Lead \Lead\ (l[e^]d), n. [OE. led, leed, lead, AS. le['a]d; akin to D. lood, MHG. l[=o]t, G. loth plummet, sounding lead, small weight, Sw. & Dan. lod. [root]123]

1. (Chem.) One of the elements, a heavy, pliable, inelastic metal, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished. It is both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity, and is used for tubes, sheets, bullets, etc. Its specific gravity is 11.37. It is easily fusible, forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredient of solder and type metal. Atomic weight, 206.4. Symbol Pb (L. Plumbum). It is chiefly obtained from the mineral galena, lead sulphide.

2. An article made of lead or an alloy of lead; as:
   (a) A plummet or mass of lead, used in sounding at sea.
   (b) (Print.) A thin strip of type metal, used to separate lines of type in printing.
   (c) Sheets or plates of lead used as a covering for roofs; hence, pl., a roof covered with lead sheets or terne plates.

I would have the tower two stories, and goodly leads upon the top. --Bacon

3. A small cylinder of black lead or plumbago, used in pencils.

Black lead, graphite or plumbago; -- so called from its leadlike appearance and streak. [Colloq.]

Coasting lead, a sounding lead intermediate in weight between a hand lead and deep-sea lead.

Deep-sea lead, the heaviest of sounding leads, used in water exceeding a hundred fathoms in depth. --Ham. Nav. Encyc.

Hand lead, a small lead use for sounding in shallow water.

Krems lead, Kremnitz lead [so called from Krems or Kremnitz, in Austria], a pure variety of white lead, formed into tablets, and called also Krems, or Kremnitz, white, and Vienna white.

Lead arming, tallow put in the hollow of a sounding lead. See To arm the lead (below).

Lead colic. See under Colic.

Lead color, a deep bluish gray color, like tarnished lead.

Lead glance. (Min.) Same as Galena.

Lead line
   (a) (Med.) A dark line along the gums produced by a deposit of metallic lead, due to lead poisoning.
   (b) (Naut.) A sounding line.

Lead mill, a leaden polishing wheel, used by lapidaries.

Lead ocher (Min.), a massive sulphur-yellow oxide of lead. Same as Massicot.

Lead pencil, a pencil of which the marking material is graphite (black lead).

Lead plant (Bot.), a low leguminous plant, genus Amorpha (A. canescens), found in the Northwestern United States, where its presence is supposed to indicate lead ore. --Gray.

Lead tree.
   (a) (Bot.) A West Indian name for the tropical, leguminous tree, Leuc[ae]na glauca; -- probably so called from the glaucous color of the foliage.
   (b) (Chem.) Lead crystallized in arborescent forms from a solution of some lead salt, as by suspending a strip of zinc in lead acetate.

Mock lead, a miner's term for blende.

Red lead, a scarlet, crystalline, granular powder, consisting of minium when pure, but commonly containing several of the oxides of lead. It is used as a paint or cement and also as an ingredient of flint glass.

Red lead ore (Min.), crocoite.

Sugar of lead, acetate of lead.

To arm the lead, to fill the hollow in the bottom of a sounding lead with tallow in order to discover the nature of the bottom by the substances adhering. --Ham. Nav. Encyc.

To cast, or heave, the lead, to cast the sounding lead for ascertaining the depth of water.

White lead, hydrated carbonate of lead, obtained as a white, amorphous powder, and much used as an ingredient of white paint.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Minium \Min"i*um\ (?; 277), n. [L. minium, an Iberian word, the Romans getting all their cinnabar from Spain; cf. Basque armine['a].]

(Chem.) A heavy, brilliant red pigment, consisting of an oxide of lead, Pb3O4, obtained by exposing lead or massicot to a gentle and continued heat in the air. It is used as a cement, as a paint, and in the manufacture of flint glass. Called also red lead.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Red horse. (Zo["o]l.)
   (a) Any large American red fresh-water sucker, especially Moxostoma macrolepidotum and allied species.
   (b) See the Note under Drumfish.

Red lead. (Chem) See under Lead, and Minium.

Red-lead ore. (Min.) Same as Crocoite.

Red liquor (Dyeing), a solution consisting essentially of aluminium acetate, used as a mordant in the fixation of dyestuffs on vegetable fiber; -- so called because used originally for red dyestuffs. Called also red mordant.

Red maggot (Zo["o]l.), the larva of the wheat midge.

Red manganese. (Min.) Same as Rhodochrosite.

Red man, one of the American Indians; -- so called from his color.

Red maple (Bot.), a species of maple (Acer rubrum). See Maple.

Red mite. (Zo["o]l.) See Red spider, below.

Red mulberry (Bot.), an American mulberry of a dark purple color (Morus rubra).

Red mullet (Zo["o]l.), the surmullet. See Mullet.

Red ocher (Min.), a soft earthy variety of hematite, of a reddish color.

Red perch (Zo["o]l.), the rosefish.

Red phosphorus. (Chem.) See under Phosphorus.

Red pine (Bot.), an American species of pine (Pinus resinosa); -- so named from its reddish bark.

Red precipitate. See under Precipitate.

Red Republican (European Politics), originally, one who maintained extreme republican doctrines in France, -- because a red liberty cap was the badge of the party; an extreme radical in social reform. [Cant]

Red ribbon, the ribbon of the Order of the Bath in England.

Red sanders. (Bot.) See Sanders.

Red sandstone. (Geol.) See under Sandstone.

Red scale (Zo["o]l.), a scale insect (Aspidiotus aurantii) very injurious to the orange tree in California and Australia.

Red silver (Min.), an ore of silver, of a ruby-red or reddish black color. It includes proustite, or light red silver, and pyrargyrite, or dark red silver.

Red snapper (Zo["o]l.), a large fish (Lutlanus aya or Blackfordii) abundant in the Gulf of Mexico and about the Florida reefs.

Red snow, snow colored by a mocroscopic unicellular alga (Protococcus nivalis) which produces large patches of scarlet on the snows of arctic or mountainous regions.

Red softening (Med.) a form of cerebral softening in which the affected parts are red, -- a condition due either to infarction or inflammation.

Red spider (Zo["o]l.), a very small web-spinning mite (Tetranychus telarius) which infests, and often destroys, plants of various kinds, especially those cultivated in houses and conservatories. It feeds mostly on the under side of the leaves, and causes them to turn yellow and die. The adult insects are usually pale red. Called also red mite.

Red squirrel (Zo["o]l.), the chickaree.

Red tape, the tape used in public offices for tying up documents, etc.; hence, official formality and delay.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)