legacy means left over from the past; old and no longer current. It carries an Arena rating of 1356, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, legacy ranks #2,364 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,449 of 14,308 for Most Malleable Words, #7,084 of 14,414 for Most Elegant Words, #7,100 of 14,440 for Most Satisfying to Say.
legacy is pronounced /ˈlɛɡəsi/.
Why “legacy” is a great word
A thing—property, influence, a reputation—handed down from a predecessor, or that which remains from a former era. From Middle English *legacie*, from Old French *legacie* and Medieval Latin *lēgātia*, from Latin *lēgātum* ("bequest, legacy"); the boardgame sense was coined in 2011 by game designer Rob Daviau. Unlike "heritage," which speaks of shared cultural tradition, or "inheritance," which denotes the legal transfer of assets, a legacy is the more solitary, ambiguous residue of a single life—tangible or not, wanted or not. It is the weight of a family name in a small town, the outdated software still running a power grid, and the deliberate tearing of a card in a game you can never play the same way twice: the understanding that what we leave behind is rarely what we intended, and that permanence, even in destruction, is the only promise we keep.
Etymology
From Middle English legacie, from Old French legacie and Medieval Latin lēgātia, from Latin lēgātum.
The boardgame sense was coined by game designer Rob Daviau in 2011 with the game Risk Legacy.
adj
- Left over from the past; old and no longer current.“They have no idea what occurs in the network or its topology, and all of the services remain dependent on it — a very legacy approach to creating services in the optical network.”
- Belonging to a class of boardgame where permanent changes are made to game elements such as the board, cards and rules over multiple play sessions.“Risk Legacy, in 2011, was the first game to give visibility to the idea of progressive and irreversible discovery in the board gaming hobby, 2 and it did so by applying it to the well-known game Risk.”
noun
- Money or property bequeathed to someone in a will.
- Something inherited from a predecessor or the past.“John Muir left as his legacy an enduring spirit of respect for the environment.”
- The descendant of an alumnus, given preference in academic admissions.“Because she was a legacy, her mother's sorority rushed her.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- bequest 86% match — The act of bequeathing or leaving by will. vs legacy →
- heirloom 83% match — A valued possession that has been passed down through the generations. vs legacy →
- patrimony 83% match — A right or estate inherited from one's father; or, in a larger sense, from any male ancestor. vs legacy →
- hereditary 82% match — Passed on as an inheritance, by last will or intestate. vs legacy →
- hereditament 82% match — Property which can be inherited. vs legacy →
- posterity 81% match — All the future generations, especially the descendants of a specific person. vs legacy →
- testament 81% match — A solemn, authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his or her will as to disposal of his or her inheritance (estate and effects) after his or her death, benefiting specified heir(s). vs legacy →
- tradition 80% match — A part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation, possibly differing in detail from family to family, such as the way to celebrate holidays. vs legacy →