Definition of "leading edge" []

• Nautical The edge of a sail that faces the wind. (noun)
• The front edge of an airplane propeller blade or wing. (noun)
• The foremost position in a trend or movement; the vanguard: "a company on the leading edge of machine-tool technology” ( Christian Science Monitor). (noun)
• Someone or something occupying such a position: "Together they are the leading edge of a new wing of historians known as cliometricians” ( Timothy Foote). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Despite the fact that I am clearly perched on the leading edge of future epochs, riding the ailerons of an age when man shall even fly to distant stars."
• "It appeared that hundreds of tiles had been damaged and the scars extended outboard toward the carbon-composite panels on the leading edge of the wing."
• "I wobble to the leading edge of the queen-bed-sized shelf to peer down the Big Drop."