leg

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   One of the two long parts of the body that people use to stand and walk.

   Dan broke his leg last week and is now on crutches.

2. 2
   noun

   One of the parts an animal uses to stand and move.

   Insects have six legs.

3. 3
   noun

   One of the parts that holds up furniture from underneath.

   One leg of the table is shorter than the others.

4. 4
   noun

   One stage of a journey, race, or competition.

   We're finally on the last leg of our road trip.

5. 5
   noun

   The part of trousers that covers a leg.

   The left leg of these jeans has a tear.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Leg entered Middle English from Old Norse legg and displaced Old English shank as the ordinary anatomical term. The sense “section of a journey,” recorded from the 1920s, developed from a 17th-century nautical use for a short rope branching into two or more parts.

From Middle English leg, legge, from Old Norse leggr (“leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk”), from Proto-Germanic *lagjaz, *lagwijaz (“leg, thigh”) (see it for more). Cognate with Scots leg (“leg”), Icelandic leggur (“leg, limb”), Norwegian Bokmål legg (“leg”), Norwegian Nynorsk legg (“leg”), Swedish lägg (“leg, shank, shaft”), Danish læg (“leg”), Lombardic lagi (“thigh, shank, leg”), Latin lacertus (“limb, arm”), Persian لنگ (leng). Upon borrowing, mostly displaced the native Old English term sċanca (Modern English shank).

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary