"lead the way" meaning in English

See lead the way in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: leads the way [present, singular, third-person], leading the way [participle, present], led the way [participle, past], led the way [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|lead<,,led> the way}} lead the way (third-person singular simple present leads the way, present participle leading the way, simple past and past participle led the way)
  1. To go first in a journey, procession, etc., so that others can follow. Translations (to go first): вървя отпред (vǎrvja otpred) (Bulgarian), веду́щий (vedúščij) (Russian)
    Sense id: en-lead_the_way-en-verb-~pujc6Ar Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 64 36 Disambiguation of 'to go first': 100 0
  2. (figurative) To act as a guide or pioneer. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-lead_the_way-en-verb-DRgCNqUA

Download JSON data for lead the way meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "antonym(s) of “to go first”",
      "word": "bring up the rear"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "leads the way",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "leading the way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "led the way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "led the way",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "lead<,,led> the way"
      },
      "expansion": "lead the way (third-person singular simple present leads the way, present participle leading the way, simple past and past participle led the way)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "64 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To go first in a journey, procession, etc., so that others can follow."
      ],
      "id": "en-lead_the_way-en-verb-~pujc6Ar",
      "links": [
        [
          "journey",
          "journey"
        ],
        [
          "procession",
          "procession"
        ],
        [
          "follow",
          "follow"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "bg",
          "lang": "Bulgarian",
          "roman": "vǎrvja otpred",
          "sense": "to go first",
          "word": "вървя отпред"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "vedúščij",
          "sense": "to go first",
          "word": "веду́щий"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005, Alan Montefiore, David Vines, Integrity in the Public and Private Domains, page 277",
          "text": "The Americans led the way in the postwar years, but UK, Continental European and Japanese companies have followed […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 26, “Network News: RIA lauds East Coast programme as default model for GBR”, in RAIL, number 949, page 11",
          "text": "Network Rail's East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) should lead the way for a national digital signalling programme and other major schemes under the new Great British Railways public body.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To act as a guide or pioneer."
      ],
      "id": "en-lead_the_way-en-verb-DRgCNqUA",
      "links": [
        [
          "guide",
          "guide"
        ],
        [
          "pioneer",
          "pioneer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) To act as a guide or pioneer."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "lead the way"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "antonym(s) of “to go first”",
      "word": "bring up the rear"
    }
  ],
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "leads the way",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "leading the way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "led the way",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "led the way",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "lead<,,led> the way"
      },
      "expansion": "lead the way (third-person singular simple present leads the way, present participle leading the way, simple past and past participle led the way)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "To go first in a journey, procession, etc., so that others can follow."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "journey",
          "journey"
        ],
        [
          "procession",
          "procession"
        ],
        [
          "follow",
          "follow"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2005, Alan Montefiore, David Vines, Integrity in the Public and Private Domains, page 277",
          "text": "The Americans led the way in the postwar years, but UK, Continental European and Japanese companies have followed […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 26, “Network News: RIA lauds East Coast programme as default model for GBR”, in RAIL, number 949, page 11",
          "text": "Network Rail's East Coast Digital Programme (ECDP) should lead the way for a national digital signalling programme and other major schemes under the new Great British Railways public body.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To act as a guide or pioneer."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "guide",
          "guide"
        ],
        [
          "pioneer",
          "pioneer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) To act as a guide or pioneer."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "bg",
      "lang": "Bulgarian",
      "roman": "vǎrvja otpred",
      "sense": "to go first",
      "word": "вървя отпред"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "vedúščij",
      "sense": "to go first",
      "word": "веду́щий"
    }
  ],
  "word": "lead the way"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.