league

1 a group of persons formally joined together for some common interest <a league of concerned parishioners who are seeking a greater voice in church affairs> Synonyms board, brotherhood, chamber, club, college, congress, consortium, council, fellowship, fraternity, guild (also gild), institute, institution, association, order, organization, society, sodalityRelated Words collective, commune, community, cooperative; alliance, bloc, camp, coalition, partnership; body, cadre, group; circle, clan, clique, coterie, junta, junto, klatch (also klatsch), lot, set; crew, outfit, party, squad, team; branch, chapter, local; faithful, fold, membership; sisterhood, sorority; cabal, camarilla, camorra, confederacy, conspiracy; band, gang, ring; cartel, combine, syndicate

2 an association of persons, parties, or states for mutual assistance and protection <created to avert future wars, the League of Nations was a forerunner of the United Nations> Synonyms alliance, axis, bloc, block, coalition, combination, combine, confederation, federation, confederacy, unionRelated Words cabal, conspiracy, junto; cartel, syndicate, trust; faction, front, fusion, side, wing; association, group, organization; affiliation, cooperative, partnership; circuit, conference

3 one of the units into which a whole is divided on the basis of a common characteristic <that falls into a different league of fiction—the popular novel> Synonyms bracket, category, classification, division, family, genus, grade, group, kind, class, order, rank(s), rubric, set, species, tier, typeRelated Words description, feather, ilk, kidney, like, manner, nature, sort; branch, section, speciality, specialty, subclass, subdivision, subgroup, subspecies, variety; breed, race; generation; heading, label, title