Lakers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A professional basketball team based in Los Angeles known for its successful history and multiple championship titles
2. A sports franchise competing in the National Basketball Association, famous for star players and a large fan base
3. A team recognized for its distinctive purple and gold colors, contributing significantly to the culture of professional basketball

Etymology: The Los Angeles Lakers take their name from the city's many lakes, but the word they wear on their jerseys has an older and less watery history. "Laker" is the plural of "laker", which in its sense of a sports team comes from the basketball franchise's name, and the team's nickname points to two separate origins that are easy to confuse. The name is traceable to Middle English, where "laken" and "leiken" meant "to play" or "to sport," the same root that gives "lake" in the sense of a game or pastime. The other possibility is the ordinary noun "lake," meaning a body of water, combined with the suffix "-er" meaning an inhabitant, so a "laker" would be a person from the lake country. A relational use of "-er" is also possible. The team's name owes its form to the Minnesota lakes region where the franchise began, and so the watery sense is the one that stuck in popular memory.