Leading
Leading adjective - Highest in rank or authority.
Usage example: served as the leading counsel on the defendant's legal team
Ruling is a synonym for leading in first topic. In some cases you can use "Ruling" instead an adjective "Leading", when it comes to topics like principal, main, chief. popular alternative
Mutual synonyms
Both words in one sentence
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Began his ruling career leading a small tribe in east Asia, died ruling the largest land empire in history.
Source: The Emperor -
He would have sold England to fund his crusades if he could've found a buyer and preferred leading his knights into battle to ruling.
Source: Colonel Kilgore -
Eberron's Church of the Silver Flame, which has many paladins in its service and bears similar parallels to Catholicism, including ruling an entire country and leading its own inquisitorial purge against lycanthropes and their shifter cousins back in the day.
Source: Crystal Dragon Jesus
Cite this Source
Ruling and Leading. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 21, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/leading/ruling
Leading & Ruling. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/leading/ruling>.
Ruling or Leading. 2016. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/leading/ruling.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "leading" and "ruling" have occurred on timeline