urban legend

noun

: an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true
the urban legend of alligators living in the sewers

called also urban myth

Examples of urban legend in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Theories as to what happened became the stuff of urban legend and online chatter. David Kushner, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2025 Its interconnected tales, which evoke campfire stories and urban legends, wring morbid laughs and genuine scares in much the same fashion as Tales From the Crypt. Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 18 Oct. 2025 Just as fascinating are Poe’s burial and his reburial 26 years later, an exhumation that adds to his mystique, even if the raw particulars of that reburial do nothing to justify the urban legend of his living entombment. Literary Hub, 8 Oct. 2025 Appendage director Anna Zlokovic’s own witch project is a decidedly less subtle affair, pitting a couple of snarky teenagers against a perversely maternal urban legend and her infantilized victims. A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 3 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for urban legend

Word History

First Known Use

1968, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of urban legend was in 1968

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Cite this Entry

“Urban legend.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/urban%20legend. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

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