means A heavy, soft, bluish-gray metallic element (symbol Pb) prized since antiquity for being dense, malleable, and corrosion-resistant — and now infamous for being quietly toxic.

from From Old English 'lead,' a Germanic word with cousins in Dutch 'lood' and German 'Lot.' The chemical symbol Pb and words like 'plumber' and 'plumbing' come from Latin 'plumbum,' the Romans' name for the metal — they piped water through it, lined their wine vessels with it, and very probably gave themselves a long, slow dose of it in the process. The Latin 'plumbum' itself is of obscure, likely pre-Roman origin, possibly borrowed from an older Mediterranean tongue.