Verb

leading

1. Present participle of lead.

Adjective

leading (comparative more leading, superlative most leading)

1. Providing guidance or direction.

   Avoiding leading questions if you really want the truth.

2. Ranking first.

   He is a leading supplier of plumbing supplies in the county.

3. Occurring in advance; preceding.

   The stock market can be a leading economic indicator.

Coordinate terms

• (occurring in advance): concurrent, lagging

Derived terms

• leading indicator

Noun

leading (plural leadings)

1. An act by which one is led or guided
   • 1792 William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the:

     It has been said that we ought not to force our way, but to wait for the openings, and leadings of Providence; but it might with equal propriety be answered in this case, neither ought we to neglect embracing those openings in providence which daily present themselves to us.

   • 1855 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass:

     […] I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.

   • 1904 Edward Dowden, Robert Browning:

     In his poetic method each writer followed the leadings of his own genius, without reference to common rules and standards; the individualism of the Revolutionary epoch asserted itself to the full.

Noun

Wikipedia leading (uncountable)

1. (typography) Vertical space added between lines; line spacing

In typography, leading (pronounced /ˈlɛdɪŋ/, rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type. In consumer-oriented word processing software, this concept is usually referred to as "line spacing" and the inclusion of a full line of space between each line is known as "double spacing", but in page layout software such as QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign the term "leading" is still used. Leading may sometimes be confused with tracking, which refers to the horizontal spacing between letters or characters.