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A.Word.A.Day--leaden leaden (LED-n) adjective 1. Made of or resembling lead. 2. Heavy. 3. Lifeless; inert; lacking energy. 4. Dull, gray in color. verb tr. To make dull or sluggish. [From Middle English leden, from Old English lædan.] "Stereotypes are peeled away to reveal stereotypes beneath, and a cast of experienced comic actors (among them Eddie Murphy's brother Charles) raise few laughs under Ms Davis's leaden direction." Philip French; Cinema: Dark side of the American Dream; The Guardian (London, UK); Nov 28, 1993. "Truth to tell, Ms. Frittoli's majestic Donna Anna (positively smoldering in Paris under the baton of James Conlon) failed to take off at the Met, where the leaden tempi of Sylvain Cambreling weighed her down like a ball and chain." Matthew Gurewitsch; A Soprano Finds Truth and Poetry in Verdi; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Mar 18, 2003. This week's theme: metallic words used as metaphors. X-Bonus If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and the fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. -Louis Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)

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