LEGEND

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Brief description accompanying an illustration

Synonyms:

caption; legend

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("legend" is a kind of...):

title (a general or descriptive heading for a section of a written work)

Holonyms ("legend" is a part of...):

illustration (artwork that helps make something clear or attractive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A story about mythical or supernatural beings or events

Synonyms:

fable; legend

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("legend" is a kind of...):

story (a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events)

Domain member category:

grail; Holy Grail; Sangraal ((legend) chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper)

King Arthur's Round Table; Round Table ((legend) the circular table for King Arthur and his knights)

hagiology (literature narrating the lives (and legends) of the saints)

Midas ((Greek legend) the greedy king of Phrygia who Dionysus gave the power to turn everything he touched into gold)

Sisyphus ((Greek legend) a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again)

Tristan; Tristram ((Middle Ages) the nephew of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with his uncle's bride (Iseult) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other)

Iseult; Isolde ((Middle Ages) the bride of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with the king's nephew (Tristan) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "legend"):

Arthurian legend (the legend of King Arthur and his court at Camelot)

Derivation:

legendary (celebrated in fable or legend)

Credits

Context examples:

It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The first page was disappointing, however, as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat," written beneath it.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Orderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Contemporary legends such as the underground pipe-line to Canada attached themselves to him, and there was one persistent story that he didn't live in a house at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was moved secretly up and down the Long Island shore.