LEGEND

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does legend mean? 

• LEGEND (noun)
  The noun LEGEND has 2 senses:

1. a story about mythical or supernatural beings or events

2. brief description accompanying an illustration

  Familiarity information: LEGEND used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEGEND (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A story about mythical or supernatural beings or events

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

fable; legend

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)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Brief description accompanying an illustration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

caption; legend

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)

 Context examples 

Indian legends would alone have been my guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all the riverine tribes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The legend of Erik the Red itself may mask what Barrett calls “ecological globalisation”: the chasing of natural resources as supply dwindles.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out his gold.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Its long, damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The exploits of the Red Chief, as they called him, had become legends among them, but the real facts, as far as I could learn them, were amazing enough.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He went to India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think it must have been a Baboo—or a Begum.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)