the.com/league
a unit of distance nobody can agree on, repurposed as the word for who belongs.
means A group of teams, people, or states bound together for a common purpose — or, in older usage, a rough measure of distance, traditionally about three miles.
from Two separate words wearing one coat. The distance 'league' comes through Old French 'lieue' from Late Latin 'leuga' or 'leuca' — a Gaulish measure the Romans borrowed, said to be the distance an ordinary person could walk in an hour, which is exactly why nobody agreed on it. The alliance 'league' arrived later, in the 15th century, from Old French 'ligue' via Italian 'liga,' from Latin 'ligare,' to bind or tie — the same root that gives us 'ligament' and 'oblige.' So one league measures how far apart you are; the other measures who you're tied to.
- old distance
- roughly how far you walk in an hour
- sea version
- twenty thousand of them stayed famously fictional
- social meaning
- out of someone's league, mathematically unmeasurable
- justice variant
- superheroes prefer it over the word club
premier league — english football competition with 20 clubs, founded 1992
nba — north american professional basketball, 30 teams, established 1946
major league baseball — us professional baseball, 30 teams across two leagues since 1903
nfl — american football league, 32 teams, founded 1920