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say it: LEE-ding
leading is an adjective and noun meaning "indicating the most important performer or role". It carries 6 recorded senses.
greatest in importance or degree or significance or achievement
“our greatest statesmen”
“the country's leading poet”
“a preeminent archeologist”
having the leading position or higher score in a contest
“he is ahead by a pawn”
“the leading team in the pennant race”
the activity of leading
“his leadership inspired the team”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for leading come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.