the.com/relay
a baton passed at full sprint, where dropping it ends everyone's race at once
means To receive something — a message, signal, or object — and pass it along to the next person or stage, often in a coordinated chain.
from From Old French 'relaier,' meaning to leave behind or release, built from 're-' (back) and 'laier' (to leave). It first described the fresh horses or hounds set out along a route so a tired team could be swapped for a rested one mid-journey — a hand-off of effort. The athletic relay race and the electrical relay both borrow that same idea: one runner, or one current, taking over from another.
electrical rootsTiny switches that let small currents control big ones
telegraph originNamed for fresh horses swapped at relay stations
4x100 secretRunners never fully stop, handing off blind backward
first computersEarly machines clicked with thousands of relays
the bugA literal moth in a relay coined debugging