pencil lead
1
2.4
- noun
- /ˈpɛnsl lɛd/
:
mina de lápiz
- His favorite art supplies include a set of pencils with different pencil leads.
- ink and pencil lead
I mean, I need an empty toilet paper roll, some wire, my father's old razor blade, a pencil lead that was pretty much free.
- I mean, I need an empty toilet paper roll, some wire, my father's old razor blade, a pencil lead that was pretty much free.
- I mean, I needed an empty toilet paper roll, some wire, my father's old razor blade, a pencil lead that was pretty much free.
Examples
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She opened a new pencil sharpener, but the pencil lead kept breaking.
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Fragments of crayons, chalk, and pencil lead suggest art and education became part of play at home.
Academic text (2010) -
The graphite in the pencil lead was only a very tiny thing, but it was responsible for the problem.
Blog text (15) -
Finally, take some black and paint in the pencil lead carefully without going over the lines and that's it.
-
When he at last sat back, the paper and the man's hands were both much begrimed with pencil lead.
Fiction book (1993) -
I mean, I need an empty toilet paper roll, some wire, my father's old razor blade, a pencil lead that was pretty much free.
-
I mean, I needed an empty toilet paper roll, some wire, my father's old razor blade, a pencil lead that was pretty much free.
-
(Incidentally, pencil leads never contained lead; it's just that when graphite was first used in the 1500s, they thought it was lead ore, and the name stuck).
Blog text (13) -
To draw fine details, I prefer a softer pencil lead that glides over the paper.
Synonyms
22
3.9
A soft black material used in pencils and to make things move smoothly
18
6.7
The soft black core inside a pencil that makes marks
How Soft
1
2.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is a straightforward, literal composition of 'pencil' (the writing implement) and 'lead' (the core used for marking), so a learner who knows both words will infer it refers to the graphite/clay core. This is a non‑idiomatic, cross‑linguistically common naming pattern with no metaphorical shift, so it is readily understandable at B1.
Etymology
Pencil lead comes from an old mistake: the dark material inside a pencil is actually graphite, but people long ago thought it was the metal 'lead'. So the word lead stayed as the name for the pencil's writing core, and pencil lead now means the dark mix used for writing and drawing.