league
noun
Simple meaning
A class or type of people or things that are evenly matched or on the same level.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
leegIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈliɡ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
chiefly in the negative
A class or type of people or things that are evenly matched or on the same level.
sports
An organization of sports teams which play against one another for a championship.
An association of sports teams that organizes matches for its members
A group or association of cooperating members.
An international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War. Its goals included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life. The predecessor of the United Nations.
A stone erected near a public road to mark the distance of a league.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An organization of sports teams which play against one another for a championship.
Used this way, league is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Sports
- News/reporting
- Everyday conversation
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use league
- “Forget about dating him; he's out of your league.”noun
- “My favorite sports organizations are the National Football League and the American League in baseball.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A league of Iroquois tribes including originally the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca (the Five Nations).
An international organization formed in 1920 to promote cooperation and peace among nations.
Attach oneself to a group.
A league of basketball teams.
The most important league in any sport (especially baseball).
A member of a major-league baseball team.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: class or type of people
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.