legion
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
government
military
natural-sciences
politics
taxonomy
war
Etymology: Attested (in Middle English, as legioun) around 1200, from Old French legion, from Latin legiō, legionem, from legō (“to gather, collect”); akin to legend, lecture. Doublet of León, which was borrowed from Spanish.
Generalized sense of “a large number” is due to an allusive phrase in Mark 5:9, "My name is Legion, for we are many".
Inflected forms:
form: legions
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: legions
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: legioning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: legioned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: legioned
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Numerous; vast; very great in number.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion.
dissatisfied customers and their legion complaints
Shepard: Where are the rest of the Reapers? Are you the last of your kind?
We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom.
gloss: The major unit or division of the Roman army, usually comprising 3000 to 6000 infantry soldiers and 100 to 200 cavalry troops.
pos: noun
tags: Ancient-Rome
gloss: A combined arms major military unit featuring cavalry, infantry, and artillery, including historical units such as the British Legion, and present-day units such as the Spanish Legion and the French Foreign Legion.
pos: noun
gloss: A large military or semi-military unit trained for combat; any military force; an army, regiment; an armed, organized and assembled militia.
pos: noun
examples: Efforts to unionize were routinely met with clubbings, shootings, jailings, blacklistings and executions, perpetrated not only by well-armed legions of company goons, but also by police officers, deputies, National Guardsmen and even regular soldiers.
gloss: A national organization or association of former servicemen, such as the American Legion.
pos: noun
gloss: A large number of people; a multitude.
pos: noun
examples: With all due respect to Aaron, every era seems to have had its legion of wrongdoers and shortcutters who used whatever science was available to get an edge.
gloss: A great number.
pos: noun
tags: often
plural
examples: where one Sin has entered, Legions will force their Way through the fame Breach.
Afternoon TV mainstays like Leila Benitez and Bobby Ledesma of Darigold Jamboree gradually gave way to teenage loveteams Vi and Bot and Guy and Pip who had legions of fans watching their shows and movies and listening to their records.
Legions of lawyers make use of codes and loopholes like the EB-5 program in the United States, whereby anyone who invests $500,000 to $1 million can gain a visa; […]
It was a tantalizing promise, delivered with Donald Trump’s trademark panache: As dealmaker in chief, he would quickly end world conflicts that had defied his predecessors and their nattily dressed legions of career diplomats.
gloss: A group of orders inferior to a class; in scientific classification, a term occasionally used to express an assemblage of objects intermediate between an order and a class.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: To form into legions.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
Related words: legionary
legionnaire
Derived words: foreign legion
infralegion
legionella
legionry
sublegion
superlegion
Translations: