legacy

legacy

English

Etymology

From Middle English legacie, from Old French legacie and Medieval Latin lēgātia, from Latin lēgātum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛɡəsi/
• (some US dialects) IPA^(key): /ˈleɪɡəsi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

legacy (plural legacies)

1. (law) Money or property bequeathed to someone in a will.
2. Something inherited from a predecessor or the past.

   Synonym: heritage

   John Muir left as his legacy an enduring spirit of respect for the environment.

   • 2019 April 6, Quinley, Caleb, “Thailand: Anti-military party leader faces sedition charges”, in Al Jazeera‎, Doha: Al Jazeera, retrieved 2019-04-06:

     And judging by how well the progressive and youth-favoured party did, many observers suspect this latest round of legal charges are a response to Future Forward's commitment to undo the legacy of military rule and undertake democratic reforms.

3. (education) The descendant of an alumnus.

   Because she was a legacy, her mother's sorority rushed her.

Translations

money or property bequeathed to someone in a will

Arabic: إرْث‎ m (ʾirṯ), تَرِكَة‎ (ar) f (tarika) Armenian: ժառանգություն (hy) (žaṙangutʿyun) Azerbaijani: miras (az) Bashkir: мираҫ (miraθ) Bulgarian: наследство (bg) n (nasledstvo) Catalan: llegat (ca) m Chechen: битам (bitam), даьхни (däxni) Chinese: Mandarin: 遺產／遗产 (zh) (yíchǎn) Czech: dědictví (cs) n Dutch: erfenis (nl), erfgoed (nl) Finnish: perintö (fi), legaatti (fi) French: héritage (fr) m German: Erbe (de) n, Erbschaft (de) f, Nachlass (de) m, Hinterlassenschaft (de) f, Vermächtnis (de) n Indonesian: warisan (id) Italian: eredità (it), lascito (it) Japanese: 遺産 (ja) (いさん, isan) Kabuverdianu: erdansa Korean: 유산 (ko) (yusan) Kyrgyz: мурас (muras) Latin: lēgātum (la) Norwegian: Bokmål: arv m, legat n Polish: spadek (pl) m Portuguese: legado (pt) m Romanian: moștenire (ro) f Russian: насле́дство (ru) n (naslédstvo) Sanskrit: रेक्णस् (sa) n (rekṇas) Serbo-Croatian: nasl(j)edstvo n, zav(j)eštanje n Spanish: legado (es) m, herencia (es) f Swedish: legat (sv) Tagalog: pamana Thai: มรดก (th) (mɔɔ-rá-dòk) Turkish: miras (tr)

something inherited from a predecessor; a heritage

Armenian: ժառանգություն (hy) (žaṙangutʿyun) Azerbaijani: irs, miras (az) Bashkir: мираҫ (miraθ) Bulgarian: наследство (bg) n (nasledstvo) Catalan: llegat (ca) m Chechen: битам (bitam), тӏаьхье (tʼäḥʳe) Chinese: Mandarin: 遗产 (zh) (yíchǎn) Danish: arv (da) c Dutch: erfgoed (nl), erfenis (nl) Esperanto: heredaĵo Estonian: pärand Faroese: arvur Finnish: perintö (fi) French: héritage (fr) m, legs (fr) m German: Wirken n, Erbe (de) n, Vermächtnis (de) n, Hinterlassenschaft (de) f Greek: κληρονομιά (el) f (klironomiá) Ancient: κληρονομία f (klēronomía) Icelandic: arfleifð f Indonesian: legasi (id), warisan (id) Italian: eredità (it), retaggio (it) m, lascito (it) m Kyrgyz: мурас (muras) Maori: whakareretanga Norwegian: arv m Bokmål: arv Nynorsk: arv Polish: dziedzictwo (pl) n, spuścizna (pl) f Portuguese: legado (pt) m Romanian: moștenire (ro) f Russian: насле́дие (ru) n (naslédije) Serbo-Croatian: nasljeđe (sh) n, nasleđe (sh) n Spanish: legado (es) m Swedish: arv (sv) n Tagalog: pamana Thai: มรดก (th) (mɔɔ-rá-dòk) Turkish: miras (tr) Walloon: eritaedje (wa) m, eritance (wa) f

the descendant of an alumnus

Norwegian: legat Serbo-Croatian: legat (sh)

Adjective

legacy

1. Left over from the past; no longer current.
   • 2000, International Engineering Consortium, The Emerging Optical Network, →ISBN, page 75:

     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.

   • 2003, Carlo Zaniolo, Peter C. Lockemann, & Marc H. Scholl, Advances in Database Technology - EDBT 2000, →ISBN:

     However, pre-relational DBMS are legacy.

   • 2006, Anne Gams Steine Asserson & Eduard J. Simons, Enabling Interaction and Quality: Beyond the Hanseatic League, →ISBN, page 118:

     Finally, the organisation ends up with an expensive ERP of which it uses only part because of divergent evolutionary directions and a set of new systems fast becoming legacy.

   • 2008, CIO - 15 Feb 2008 Vol. 21, No. 9, page 49:

     There was talk in the past that ERP systems were legacy, lacked the agility and flexibility, and did not support interoperability.

   • 2009, Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, & Greg Ramsey, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed, →ISBN:

     Because most of these HALs are legacy and only used on aging or outdated hardware, chances are that you do not have any in your lab and must be creative in procuring one from an active user.

   • 2013, Management Association, Software Design and Development, →ISBN:

     In practice, there are legacy or mature, domain specific, off the shelf (i.e. software that other software projects can reuse and integrate into their own products) tools that are used regularly by modeleres (e.g., for testing purposes, for communication and collaboration).

Derived terms

• legacy code
• legacy-free
• legacy system

Translations

left behind, old or no longer in active use

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: vanha (fi), vanhentunut (fi) French: please add this translation if you can German: hinterlassen (de), vererbt (de), tradiert (de), Alt- Italian: vecchio (it), abbandonato (it) Norwegian: foreldet (no) Romanian: moștenit (ro) Russian: унасле́дованный (ru) (unaslédovannyj) Serbo-Croatian: starudija (sh) f