legion – English noun declension

English noun forms of legion

Noun: legion
Singularlegion
Plurallegions

Sample Sentences

  • 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. [2009 February 22, Kevin Baker, “Blood on the Street”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2022:]
  • Their complicated affairs are managed by a legion of accountants.
  • 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. [2009 July 31, William C. Rhoden, “Baseball Players’ Silence Led to Loud Drip of Names”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022:]
  • where one Sin has entered, Legions will force their Way through the fame Breach. [1735, John Rogers (Canon of Wells.), “Sermon XV. Universal Obedience to the Laws of God, the indispensable Obligation of Christians”, in Nineteen Sermons on several occasions:]
  • 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. [2002, Pia B. Gutierrez, The changing face of the Filipino, page 35:]
  • 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; […] [2019 May 28, Zachary Karabell, “How Hidden Billions Are Making the Rich Richer”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2020:]
  • 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. [2025 April 24, Ned Temko, “Trump’s ‘quick fix’ approach to diplomacy slow to yield results”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 24 Jul 2025:]

Etymology

1. 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.
2. Generalized sense of “a large number” is due to an allusive phrase in Mark 5:9, "My name is Legion, for we are many". See: Latin Nouns 'legiō'.