Etymology
The term league has many different meanings in different areas around the world, and its use for different concepts can make comparisons confusing. Usually a league is a group of teams that play each other during the season. It is also often used for the name of the governing body that oversees the league, as in Major League Baseball or England's Football League. Because most European soccer clubs participate in different competitions during a season, regular-season home-and-away games are often referred to as league games and the others as non-league games, even though the separate competitions may be organised by the same governing body. Also, there is a rugby football code called rugby league, as distinct from rugby union.
Read more about this topic: Professional Sports League Organization
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)