league
part of speech
noun (a league, leagues)
meaning for a pupil
1) A group of sports teams or clubs that play matches against each other to see who is best. tree →
2) A level of quality: «He is not in the same league». tree →
3) A group of people or countries who join together for a shared aim. tree →
4) An old measure of distance, about three miles (about 5 kilometres). tree →
sense in the lessons
In sport and PE: «football league», «the top of the league», «league table» (a list that ranks teams by points — reading it uses addition and comparing numbers). In stories: «Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea» uses the old distance meaning. Phrases: «in league with» (working secretly with someone).
examples
- Our team is top of the league. tree →
- She plays in a girls' football league. tree →
- We get three points for a win in our league. tree →
- Look at the league table to see who is winning. tree →
- That chess player is out of my league. tree →
- The pirates were in league with the guards. tree →
- In the old story, they walked seven leagues in one day. tree →
note
Spelling trap: «league» ends in «-gue», said «leeg». Countable: a league, leagues. In a league table, teams with equal points are ranked by goal difference (goals for minus goals against).
In the corpora
- The Haudenosaunee nations joined in a league of peace to settle quarrels by talking.
- In a league a win is worth 3 points and a draw 1.
- Union has 15 players a side and league 13.
- Most professional footballers retire in their 30s, and many outside the top leagues earn ordinary wages and need a second career.
- VAR was used at the 2018 World Cup and came to the Premier League a year later, in 2019.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «league» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.