LEADEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does leaden mean? 

• LEADEN (adjective)
  The adjective LEADEN has 5 senses:

1. darkened with overcast

2. made heavy or weighted down with weariness

3. made of lead

4. (of movement) slow and laborious

5. lacking lightness or liveliness

  Familiarity information: LEADEN used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEADEN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Darkened with overcast

Synonyms:

dull; leaden

Context example:

the sky was leaden and thick

Similar:

cloudy (full of or covered with clouds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Made heavy or weighted down with weariness

Synonyms:

leaden; weighted

Context example:

weighted eyelids

Similar:

heavy (marked by great psychological weight; weighted down especially with sadness or troubles or weariness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Made of lead

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

a leaden weight

Pertainym:

lead (a soft heavy toxic malleable metallic element; bluish white when freshly cut but tarnishes readily to dull grey)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(of movement) slow and laborious

Synonyms:

leaden; plodding

Context example:

leaden steps

Similar:

effortful (requiring great physical effort)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Lacking lightness or liveliness

Synonyms:

heavy; leaden

Context example:

a leaden conversation

Similar:

dull (lacking in liveliness or animation)

 Context examples 

The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There were two leaden crowns among the silver, but I would not for that stand in the way of his salvation.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I lifted up the leaden hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

At such times she cocked both triggers of the gun, prepared to meet him with leaden death if he should burst loose, herself trembling and palpitating and dizzy from the tension and shock.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The heavy, white face was seamed with lines of trouble, the hanging pouches under the closed eyes were leaden in colour, the loose mouth drooped dolorously at the corners, the rolling chins were unshaven.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill—all this was Buck’s, only it was infinitely more intimate.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The sea breeze, as though it had the sooner blown itself out by its unusual violence, was already at an end; it had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south and south-east, carrying great banks of fog; and the anchorage, under lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden as when first we entered it.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea to windward.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)