league
/liːɡ/noun, verb, adjective
league is spelled L-E-A-G-U-E. The wrong spelling people search most is leage: about 220 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 49 of all searches for the word. League is a noun meaning “A group or association of cooperating members”. The plural of league is leagues.
How many letters and syllables are in league?
| Letters | 6: L-E-A-G-U-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 135 times per million words; the 770th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, leage, about 220 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell league?
League is spelled L-E-A-G-U-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 49 of the searches for league in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is league?
League appears 135 times per million words in written English, the 770th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce league?
- /liːɡ/
League has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-league.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of league
- leagues plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- leaguing participle, present
- leagued participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does league mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A group or association of cooperating members.
the League of Nations
- 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
informalEllipsis of rugby league.
Are you going to watch the league tonight?
- 4
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.
- 5
A prefecture-level administrative unit in Inner Mongolia (Chinese: 盟).
- 6
An alliance or coalition.
- 7
obsoleteA unit of itinerary distance varying with country, in Britain commonly about three statute miles (or five kilometres). Perhaps representing an hour's walking.
Seven leagues above the mouth of the river we meet with two other passes, as large as the middle one by which we entered.
- 8
obsoleteThree nautical miles.
- 9
A stone erected near a public road to mark the distance of a league.
verb
- 1
To form an association; to unite in a league or confederacy; to combine for mutual support.
adjective
- 1
UKPlaying in the The Football League or the Premier League, the top four divisions of English football
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
League in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ligue , lieue |
| German | Liga, Bund, Verband, Verein, Vereinigung , Leuge |
| Portuguese | aliança, liga , légua , associar-se |
| Spanish | alianza, liga , legua , asociarse |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does league come 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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).