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
The yacht is also rumored to be carrying surface-to-air missiles, though that may be an urban legend.
—
Julia Zaltzman, Robb Report, 8 Apr. 2024
Stories about urban legends that could happen to anyone, anywhere, in the backdrop of Seoul, 2024.
—Marta Balaga, Variety, 12 Mar. 2024
As with any ghost story, urban legend and speculation do the most heavy lifting.
—Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2024
Unclaimed property isn’t an urban legend or an internet scam.
—Massachusetts State Treasurer’s Unclaimed Property Division, USA TODAY, 26 Jan. 2024
Regardless of who’s to blame, at least this cyber urban legend has inspired some solid meme content.
—Andy Greenberg Dhruv Mehrotra, WIRED, 10 Feb. 2024
The online film community tends to treat Nyad as an urban legend, a movie that exists only to earn Guild nominations and cannot be seen by untrained eyes.
—Vulture, 23 Jan. 2024
The general plot of the movie, involving a white graduate student researching an urban legend about a Black son of a slave who was lynched for falling in love with a white woman, offers complex questions for viewers to ponder.
—Chris Snellgrove, EW.com, 16 Oct. 2023
The find suggests that sharks’ finely tuned sense of smell, the subject of urban legends, was already being selected for just as these predators were becoming established.
—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 6 July 2023
Julia Zaltzman, Robb Report, 8 Apr. 2024
Stories about urban legends that could happen to anyone, anywhere, in the backdrop of Seoul, 2024.
—Marta Balaga, Variety, 12 Mar. 2024
As with any ghost story, urban legend and speculation do the most heavy lifting.
—Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2024
Unclaimed property isn’t an urban legend or an internet scam.
—Massachusetts State Treasurer’s Unclaimed Property Division, USA TODAY, 26 Jan. 2024
Regardless of who’s to blame, at least this cyber urban legend has inspired some solid meme content.
—Andy Greenberg Dhruv Mehrotra, WIRED, 10 Feb. 2024
The online film community tends to treat Nyad as an urban legend, a movie that exists only to earn Guild nominations and cannot be seen by untrained eyes.
—Vulture, 23 Jan. 2024
The general plot of the movie, involving a white graduate student researching an urban legend about a Black son of a slave who was lynched for falling in love with a white woman, offers complex questions for viewers to ponder.
—Chris Snellgrove, EW.com, 16 Oct. 2023
The find suggests that sharks’ finely tuned sense of smell, the subject of urban legends, was already being selected for just as these predators were becoming established.
—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 6 July 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'urban legend.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near urban legend
Cite this Entry
“Urban legend.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/urban%20legend. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share