league

• IPA^(key): /liːɡ/

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• Rhymes: -iːɡ

From Middle English ligg, from Middle French ligue, from Italian lega, from the verb legare, from Latin ligō (“I tie”).

league (plural leagues)

1. A group or association of cooperating members.

   the League of Nations

   • Denham

     And let there be / 'Twixt us and them no league, nor amity.

2. An organization of sports teams which play against one another for a championship.

   My favorite sports organizations are the National Football League and the American League in baseball.

3. (informal) rugby league

   Are you going to watch the league tonight?

4. (often in the negative) A class or type of people or things that are evenly matched or on the same level.

   Forget about dating him; he's out of your league.

   We're not even in the same league.

5. A prefecture-level administrative unit in Inner Mongolia (Chinese: 盟).

league (third-person singular simple present leagues, present participle leaguing, simple past and past participle leagued)

1. To form an association; to unite in a league or confederacy; to combine for mutual support.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of South to this entry?)

From Middle English lege (“league”), from Late Latin leuca, leuga (“the Gaulish mile”), from Gaulish[1], from Proto-Celtic *lewgā (compare Middle Breton leau, Welsh lew, Breton lev / leo (“league”)).[2]

league (plural leagues)

1. (measurement) The distance that a person can walk in one hour, commonly taken to be approximately three English miles (about five kilometers).
   • M. 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.

2. A stone erected near a public road to mark the distance of a league.

• Online Etymology, league
• Middle English Dictionary, lege