lead to

Related to lead to: result in, lead to believe

lead (one) to (do something)

To cause or compel force one to do something. The sales agent led me to believe I would continue paying the lower price if I signed up for the TV service, but when I got my first bill I learned that wasn't the case. These sales lead us to think that there is not much of a market for this kind of product. His continued misuse of the internet led his parents to ban him from using it altogether.
See also: lead

lead to (something)

1. To guide or direct someone or something to something or some place. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is usually used between "lead" and "to." I dug a path that would lead excess rain water to a drainage ditch by the side of our house. The officer led us to the courtroom to await our sentence.
2. To cause or result in some state or condition. Only hard work leads to true success. Eating too much junk food could lead to some serious health problems, not to mention gaining weight!
See also: lead
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

lead (someone or an animal) to something

to guide someone or an animal to something or some place. Would you lead Paul to the place where the trunks are kept? The cat is so old that we had to lead her to her food.
See also: lead
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

lead to

v.
1. To guide someone to something or someone: Our teacher led the children to the museum. This path leads to the other side of the forest.
2. To have something as a goal or result: Exercise leads to better health.
See also: lead
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • lead (one) to (do something)
  • lead one to
  • lead to do
  • compel
  • compel (someone) to (do something)
  • compel to do
  • terrify (one) out of (something or some place)
  • terrorize (one) out of (something)
  • terrify into
  • terrify (one) into (something)
References in periodicals archive
At high levels, lead in the blood of a pregnant woman can lead to a miscarriage or premature birth and at lower levels it can hold back the development of an unborn baby's nervous system and brain.
A 1984 EPA study estimated that reduction of lead to 0.1 gram per gallon could save car owners as much as $660 million annually in auto maintenance costs.
The relationship of bone and blood lead to hypertension--the normative aging study.
The critical challenge in applying this approach is the characterization of the isotopic composition of the end members contributing lead to blood (e.g., external sources and the skeleton).
In that case, one would expect more lead to slip past the kidneys and into the bloodstream, Kim says.
Both alleles were positively associated with decreased bone lead concentrations, and neither affected the relationship of blood or bone lead to ALS.
However, child advocates point out that this ignores the fact that lead was left in exterior paint for another 25 years, and that exterior paint still posed a threat, by both being used indoors and adding lead to outdoor soil.
They found that women who never had children -- and therefore never shed significant bone and bone-bound lead to developing offspring -- carry far more lead into old age than those who had been pregnant.
Several Mexican folk remedies use lead to treat common ailments--like empacho, constipation thought to be caused by eating a food at the wrong time, or by making children eat foods they don't like.
These results cannot quantitatively account for the rate of addition of lead to wine in contact with the bathtub, but they indicate that the powdered surface of the bathtub was a source of large quantities of lead.
It's unlikely that exposure to lead would automatically lead to taking drugs because various sociocultural and psychologic factors are involved in the initiation of drug use, Bardo says.
The treatment of acute lead toxicity with intravenous EDTA, as used in this case, remains the standard method for managing lead toxicity; the addition of British anti-Lewisite (BAL or dimercaprol) is recommended at very high levels of exposure (i.e., blood lead levels [is greater than] 100 [micro]g/dL) to avoid exacerbation of central nervous system toxicity that may result from transient redistribution of lead to the brain during EDTA chelation.
These cases illustrate the utility of the lead isotope method to identify main source(s) of lead exposure to the child; discard unlikely sources of exposure to the child; point to sources of lead to dust; and substantiate or refine the environmental assessment based exclusively on lead concentrations and loadings.
Appendix B7, Conditions Required for A Source of Lead to be a Hazard.
The scientists chose these young children because they are most susceptible to the deleterious effects of lead poisoning; in addition, their hand-to-mouth activities can lead to ingestion of lead-contaminated dust, and they spend up to eight hours per day in the classrooms.