lead poisoning

[ led ]

noun
  1. Pathology.

    • a toxic condition produced by ingestion, inhalation, or skin absorption of lead or lead compounds, resulting in various dose-related symptoms including anemia, nausea, muscle weakness, confusion, blindness, and coma.

    • Also called plumbism, saturnism. this condition occurring in adults whose work involves contact with lead products.

  2. Slang. death or injury inflicted by a bullet or shot.

Origin of lead poisoning

1
First recorded in 1875–80

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use lead poisoning in a sentence

  • Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead poisoning—had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died.

  • She was employed as an enamelled ware brusher, wherein lead poisoning is encountered.

British Dictionary definitions for lead poisoning

lead poisoning

/ (lɛd) /


noun
  1. Also called: plumbism, saturnism acute or chronic poisoning by lead or its salts, characterized by abdominal pain, vomiting, convulsions, and coma

  2. US slang death or injury resulting from being shot with bullets

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012