Lead n.
 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 (melting point 327.5° C), forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredient of solder and type metal. Atomic number 82.  Atomic weight, 207.2. 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 graphite, 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 white, 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 (Amorpha 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, Leucæna 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 the lead, or To 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.


 min·i·um n.  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, lead tetroxide, lead orthoplumbate, mineral orange, mineral red, Paris red, Saturn red, and less definitively, lead oxide.

 ◄ ►


 Red, a. [Compar. Redder superl. Reddest.]  Of the color of blood, or of a tint resembling that color; of the hue of that part of the rainbow, or of the solar spectrum, which is furthest from the violet part. “Fresh flowers, white and reede.”
    Your color, I warrant you, is as red as any rose.   --Shak.
 Note: ☞ Red is a general term, including many different shades or hues, as scarlet, crimson, vermilion, orange red, and the like.
 Note: ☞ Red is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, red-breasted, red-cheeked, red-faced, red-haired, red-headed, red-skinned, red-tailed, red-topped, red-whiskered, red-coasted.
 Red admiral Zool., a beautiful butterfly (Vanessa Atalanta) common in both Europe and America. The front wings are crossed by a broad orange red band. The larva feeds on nettles. Called also Atalanta butterfly, and nettle butterfly.
 Red ant. Zool. (a) A very small ant (Myrmica molesta) which often infests houses. (b) A larger reddish ant (Formica sanguinea), native of Europe and America. It is one of the slave-making species.
 Red antimony Min., kermesite. See Kermes mineral (b), under Kermes.
 Red ash Bot., an American tree (Fraxinus pubescens), smaller than the white ash, and less valuable for timber. --Cray.
 Red bass. Zool. See Redfish (d).
 Red bay Bot., a tree (Persea Caroliniensis) having the heartwood red, found in swamps in the Southern United States.
 Red beard Zool., a bright red sponge (Microciona prolifera), common on oyster shells and stones. [Local, U.S.]
 Red birch Bot., a species of birch (Betula nigra) having reddish brown bark, and compact, light-colored wood. --Gray.
 Red blindness. Med. See Daltonism.
 Red book, a book containing the names of all the persons in the service of the state. [Eng.]
 Red book of the Exchequer, an ancient record in which are registered the names of all that held lands per baroniam in the time of Henry II. --Brande & C.
 Red brass, an alloy containing eight parts of copper and three of zinc.
 Red bug. Zool. (a) A very small mite which in Florida attacks man, and produces great irritation by its bites. (b) A red hemipterous insect of the genus Pyrrhocoris, especially the European species (Pyrrhocoris apterus), which is bright scarlet and lives in clusters on tree trunks. (c) See Cotton stainder, under Cotton.
 Red cedar. Bot. An evergreen North American tree (Juniperus Virginiana) having a fragrant red-colored heartwood. (b) A tree of India and Australia (Cedrela Toona) having fragrant reddish wood; -- called also toon tree in India.
 Red chalk. See under Chalk.
 Red copper Min., red oxide of copper; cuprite.
 Red coral Zool., the precious coral (Corallium rubrum). See Illusts. of Coral and Gorgonlacea.
 Red cross. The cross of St. George, the national emblem of the English. (b) The Geneva cross. See Geneva convention, and Geneva cross, under Geneva.
 Red currant. Bot. See Currant.
 Red deer. Zool. (a) The common stag (Cervus elaphus), native of the forests of the temperate parts of Europe and Asia.  It is very similar to the American elk, or wapiti. (b) The Virginia deer. See Deer.
 Red duck Zool., a European reddish brown duck (Fuligula nyroca); -- called also ferruginous duck.
 Red ebony. Bot. See Grenadillo.
 Red empress Zool., a butterfly. See Tortoise shell.
 Red fir Bot., a coniferous tree (Pseudotsuga Douglasii) found from British Columbia to Texas, and highly valued for its durable timber. The name is sometimes given to other coniferous trees, as the Norway spruce and the American Abies magnifica and Abies nobilis.
 Red fire. Pyrotech. See Blue fire, under Fire.
 Red flag. See under Flag.
 Red fox Zool., the common American fox (Vulpes fulvus), which is usually reddish in color.
 Red grouse Zool., the Scotch grouse, or ptarmigan. See under Ptarmigan.
 Red gum, or Red gum-tree Bot., a name given to eight Australian species of Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus amygdalina, resinifera, etc.) which yield a reddish gum resin. See Eucalyptus.
 Red hand Her., a left hand appaumé, fingers erect, borne on an escutcheon, being the mark of a baronet of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; -- called also Badge of Ulster.
 Red herring, the common herring dried and smoked.
 Red horse. Zool. (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 Zool., 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. Zool. See Red spider, below.
 Red mulberry Bot., an American mulberry of a dark purple color (Morus rubra).
 Red mullet Zool., the surmullet. See Mullet.
 Red ocher Min., a soft earthy variety of hematite, of a reddish color.
 Red perch Zool., 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 Zool., 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 Zool., a large fish (Lutjanus aya syn. Lutjanus 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 Zool., 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 Zool., the chickaree.
 Red tape, (a) the tape used in public offices for tying up documents, etc.  Hence, (b) official formality and delay; excessive bureaucratic paperwork.
 Red underwing Zool., any species of noctuid moths belonging to Catacola and allied genera.  The numerous species are mostly large and handsomely colored.  The under wings are commonly banded with bright red or orange.
 Red water, a disease in cattle, so called from an appearance like blood in the urine.


 red lead
      n : a reddish oxide of lead (Pb3O4) used as a pigment in paints
          and in glass and ceramics [syn: minium]