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Glite Dictionary
🌫️ Dark and cloudy 🐘 Heavy and slow 😔 Dull and heavy 🔩 Made of lead
leaden

leaden

1 7.4
Being heavy and slow because you feel tired
  • adjective
  • /ˈlɛdən/
translation icon : pesado
  • When I get up too early, my mind is as leaden as a snow cloud.
  • feel leaden
  • leaden legs
  • leaden feet

Being with someone where it's so heavy and so leaden is going to take a toll on you.

Examples

  • P113 After Teddy left for school, Giselle just lay in bed feeling simultaneously leaden and jittery.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • With every leaden step he took, he and his bags seemed to get heavier and heavier.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • For ten hours he has to sit on this bus, ten leaden hours.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Being with someone where it's so heavy and so leaden is going to take a toll on you.

    DoctorRamani

  • His legs felt heavy, his head and arms leaden, wide awake though he lay in the darkness.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Once more, a leaden uneasiness took possession of him.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • His neck was sore, and his feet and leaden legs pained him.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • My abdomen soon felt leaden, and I was sure I would menstruate momentarily.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • After a long day at work, she felt leaden as she sank onto the sofa, completely drained of energy.

  • He walked slowly with leaden feet, struggling to lift his legs as tiredness overwhelmed him.

Synonyms

heavy
vsleaden
20 2.3

Moving slowly in a clumsy way

adds a sense of being emotionally or physically weighed down
lethargic
vsleaden
15 5.3

Being very tired and slow with little interest or energy

is slow with an added sense of weight or emotional burden
plodding
vsleaden
1 5.3

Moving or working slowly and without much energy

shows the slowness but also a heavy burdened quality
sluggy
vsleaden
1 7.8

Feeling slow and without energy

feels slow but also weighed down by heavy tiredness or emotion
wearied
vsleaden
3.4

Feeling very tired after hard physical or mental effort

describes tiredness that also makes movement feel weighed down

Antonyms

energetic
93 1.6

Full of energy and active

buoyant
7 5.8

Cheerful and full of energy

light
1 2.1

With very little luggage when travelling

How Sluggish

leaden
1 7.4
lethargic
15 5.3
sluggish
30 3.9
listless
12 6.1
weary
129 3.2

Surface Forms

leaden positive

Morphology

leaden = lead (semi-transparent) = lead + en

The sense 'feeling heavy and slow' is a metaphorical extension from the metal's physical heaviness; the morphological relation is clear but the shift to emotional/behavioral heaviness is slightly figurative.

Etymology

Leaden comes from the heavy metal lead, so to feel leaden is to feel 'weighed down' and move slowly, as if you carried lead in your body.