Other forms: leagues
A league is a group of teams that play each other through a season for a title. The Premier League, top of the league, a league table.
It is also an alliance of countries or groups — the League of Nations, a league of cities — which is the older sense. In figurative use, out of your league means far better than you and is usually about romance, and in the same league means comparable in quality. Note the entirely separate old unit of distance, about three miles, which survives only in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, where it is a distance travelled rather than a depth.
1nounleagueA group of sports teams competing over a season.
“They were promoted to the league above.”
2nounallianceAn alliance of countries or organisations.
“The league was formed in 1920 and lasted twenty-six years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
league is an association or competition.
Italian lega comes from Latin ligare, to bind — the same verb behind ligament, oblige and ally. A league is a binding together, and the sporting sense grew from the older political one.
Proto-Indo-European
*leyǵ-
Latin
ligō — to tie
Italian
lega
Middle French
ligue
Middle English
liege
English, today
league
Built from
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 (“to tie”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA