different between multitude vs league

English

Etymology

From Middle English multitude, multitud, multytude (“(great) amount or number of people or things; multitudinous”), borrowed from Old French multitude (“crowd of people; diversity, wide range”), or directly from its etymon Latin multit?d? (“great amount or number of people or things”), from multus (“many; much”) + -t?d? (suffix forming abstract nouns indicating a state or condition). The English word is analysable as multi- +? -tude.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?lt?tju?d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?lt??t(j)ud/, /?m?l-/
• Hyphenation: mul?ti?tude

Noun

multitude (plural multitudes)

1. A great amount or number, often of people; abundance, myriad, profusion.

   Synonym: (Northern England, Scotland) hantel, hantle
2. The mass of ordinary people; the masses, the populace.

   Synonym: crowd

   Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them.

   • Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil

Derived terms

• multitudinous

Translations

References

Further reading

• multitude on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

From Old French multitude.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /myl.ti.tyd/

Noun

multitude f (plural multitudes)

1. multitude

Further reading

• “multitude” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin multit?d? (“great amount or number of people or things”), from multus (“many; much”) + -t?d? (suffix forming abstract nouns indicating a state or condition).

Noun

multitude f (oblique plural multitudes, nominative singular multitude, nominative plural multitudes)

1. crowd of people
2. diversity; wide range

Descendants

• English: multitude
• French: multitude

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /li??/
• Rhymes: -i??

Etymology 1

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 lig? (“I tie”).

Noun

league (plural leagues)

1. A group or association of cooperating members.
   • 1668, John Denham, The Passion of Dido for Aeneas

     And let there be / 'Twixt us and them no league, nor amity.

2. (sports) An organization of sports teams which play against one another for a championship.

3. (informal, rugby) Ellipsis of rugby league

4. (often in the negative) A class or type of people or things that are evenly matched or on the same level.

5. A prefecture-level administrative unit in Inner Mongolia (Chinese: ?).

Derived terms

Related terms

• ally
• alliance

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (r?gu)
• ? Korean: ?? (rigeu)

Translations

Verb

league (third-person singular simple present leagues, present participle leaguing, simple past and past participle leagued)

1. To form an association; to unite in a league or confederacy; to combine for mutual support.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of South to this entry?)

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English lege (“league”), from Late Latin leuca, leuga (“the Gaulish mile”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *lewg? (compare Middle Breton leau, Welsh lew, Breton lev / leo (“league”)).

Noun

league (plural leagues)

1. (measurement) The distance that a person can walk in one hour, commonly taken to be approximately three English miles (about five kilometers).
   • 1751-1753, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, History of Louisiana (PG), p. 47

     Seven leagues above the mouth of the river we meet with two other passes, as large as the middle one by which we entered.
2. A stone erected near a public road to mark the distance of a league.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “league”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• Middle English Dictionary, lege