English Online Dictionary. What means league? What does league mean?
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /liːɡ/
- Rhymes: -iːɡ
Etymology 1
From Middle English liege, ligg, lige (“a pact between governments, an agreement, alliance”), from Middle French ligue, from Italian lega, from the verb legare, from Latin ligō (“I tie”).
Noun
league (countable and uncountable, plural leagues)
- A group or association of cooperating members.
- (sports) An organization of sports teams which play against one another for a championship.
- (informal, rugby, uncountable) Ellipsis of rugby league.
- (chiefly in the negative) A class or type of people or things that are evenly matched or on the same level.
- A prefecture-level administrative unit in Inner Mongolia (Chinese: 盟).
- (military) An alliance or coalition.
Derived terms
Related terms
- ally
- alliance
Descendants
- → Japanese: リーグ (rīgu)
- → Korean: 리그 (rigeu)
Translations
Verb
league (third-person singular simple present leagues, present participle leaguing, simple past and past participle leagued)
- (ambitransitive) To form an association; to unite in a league or confederacy; to combine for mutual support.
Translations
Adjective
league (not comparable)
- (British, soccer) Playing in the The Football League or the Premier League, the top four divisions of English football
Antonyms
- non-league
Etymology 2
From Middle English lege (“league”), from Late Latin leuca, leuga (“the Gaulish mile”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *lougā (compare Middle Breton leau, lew, Breton lev / leo (“league”)).
Noun
league (plural leagues)
- (measurement) The distance that a person can walk in one hour, commonly taken to be approximately three English miles (about five kilometers).
- 1751-1753, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, History of Louisiana (PG), p. 47
- Seven leagues above the mouth of the river we meet with two other passes, as large as the middle one by which we entered.
- A stone erected near a public road to mark the distance of a league.
Translations
References
- Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “league”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Middle English Dictionary, lege