say it: REE-lay
relay is a noun and verb meaning "the act of passing something along from one person or group to another". It carries 7 recorded senses.
the act of passing something along from one person or group to another
“the relay was successful”
a crew of workers who relieve another crew
a fresh team to relieve weary draft animals
a race between teams; each member runs or swims part of the distance
electrical device such that current flowing through it in one circuit can switch on and off a current in a second circuit
control or operate by relay
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for relay come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.