Other forms: legacies
A legacy is what somebody leaves behind. Money named for you in a will, the library a mayor fought to build, the way a coach's players still talk about her twenty years later.
The legal sense is the narrow one — a sum of money or a piece of property left in a will — and the figurative sense is the one you meet in newspapers: his legacy as prime minister, the legacy of the strike. It is not always something good, since 'the legacy of the war' means the damage still lying about. It takes OF for the source and pairs with leave: leave a legacy, a lasting legacy, the legacy of colonial rule. In computing it became an adjective, and a faintly rude one, because a legacy system is old software still running only because nobody dares replace it. Keep it apart from inheritance: a legacy is what you leave, an inheritance is what you receive, the same money seen from opposite ends.
1nounlegacySomething handed down by a person or a period, good or bad.
“The bridge is the clearest legacy of his years as mayor.”
2nounbequestMoney or property left to someone in a will.
“A small legacy from her godmother paid for the course.”
synonyms: bequest, inheritance
3adjectiveuseOld but still in use, especially of computer systems.
“The bank still runs its payments on a legacy system from 1994.”
legacy is something handed down.
Also accepted in games: heritage
Legacy came through Old French from Medieval Latin lēgātia and Latin lego, the verb of leaving things to people in a will — the same root that gives legatee, the person who collects. The word picked up a new job in 2011, when the designer Rob Daviau made Risk Legacy: a legacy game is one whose board carries the marks of every game played before.
Latin
lego
Medieval Latin
lēgātia
Old French
legacie
Middle English
legacie
English, today
legacy
From Middle English legacie, from Old French legacie and Medieval Latin lēgātia, from Latin lego. Compare legatee. The boardgame sense was coined by game designer Rob Daviau in 2011 with the game Risk Legacy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA