Lead
Etymology

The modern English word lead is of Germanic origin; it comes from the Middle English leed and Old English lēad (with the macron above the "e" signifying that the vowel sound of that letter is long). The Old English word is derived from the hypothetical reconstructed Proto-Germanic * lauda- ('lead'). According to linguistic theory, this word bore descendants in multiple Germanic languages of exactly the same meaning.

There is no consensus on the origin of the Proto-Germanic * lauda-. One hypothesis suggests it is derived from Proto-Indo-European * lAudh- ('lead'; capitalization of the vowel is equivalent to the macron). Another hypothesis suggests it is borrowed from Proto-Celtic * ɸloud-io- ('lead'). This word is related to the Latin plumbum, which gave the element its chemical symbol Pb. The word * ɸloud-io- is thought to be the origin of Proto-Germanic * bliwa- (which also means 'lead'), from which stemmed the German Blei.

The name of the chemical element is not related to the verb of the same spelling, which is derived from Proto-Germanic * laidijan- ('to lead').
punctuation:no_comma