Which element has the chemical symbol 'Pb'?

Lead is the chemical element with the symbol Pb.

The symbol comes from plumbum, the Latin word for lead, rather than from the English name. Lead has atomic number 82 and belongs to Group 14 of the periodic table. Its Latin name also survives in the word plumbing, because Roman engineers used lead extensively for water pipes.

Lead is a dense, soft, malleable metal that has been used since antiquity. Ancient civilizations valued it because it melts at a relatively low temperature and can be shaped easily. It commonly forms compounds in the +2 oxidation state, while the +4 state is more important in some specialized compounds.

A frequent source of confusion is the similar historical terminology for lead and tin. Romans called lead plumbum nigrum, or “black lead,” while tin was plumbum candidum, or “bright lead.” Lead is also not the same as graphite, despite the old expression “lead pencil”: pencil cores contain graphite and clay, not metallic lead.