legendary
Noun plurallegendaries
Plurallegendaries
- 1Possessing such extraordinary greatness that the achievement gives rise to stories.
The marathon runner's legendary endurance left every rival far behind.
Fans still speak of the band's legendary final concert.
Similarfamous, renowned, celebrated, iconic, storied
Oppositeobscure, unknown, forgettable, unremarkable
Note
Here the word turns from doubt to praise: the adjective for things found only in stories also crowns real, documented people. Phil McNulty's BBC Sport report of 2013 calls Bill Shankly Liverpool's "legendary Scottish manager", a man whose existence nobody questions. The test is the subject. Of a dragon, it means existing only in legend; of a coach or a concert, it means greatness worth retelling.
- 2Possessing the grandeur and splendor of a legend; fabled.
The estate's legendary gardens rivaled those of any royal court.
Critics described the film's sets as legendary in their opulence.
Similarfabled, fabulous, storied, magnificent
Oppositeordinary, unremarkable, modest
- 3Occurring only in legends rather than in documented reality.
The legendary phoenix appears in tales from many cultures.
Historians doubt the legendary founder of the city ever existed.
Similarmythical, fabled, mythological, fictitious, imaginary
Oppositehistorical, real, actual, factual
- 4Relating to a legend or to legends.
Her research focuses on the legendary traditions of Norse culture.
He devoted his career to legendary material from the medieval period.
Similarmythological, mythic
Oppositehistorical
- 5A rare, exceptionally powerful Pokémon belonging to a special in-game class.
Players spent the whole event hunting a single elusive legendary.
The newest game introduced three powerful legendaries to the roster.
Note
Pokémon players have clipped the phrase legendary Pokémon down to the adjective alone. The result behaves as an ordinary countable noun: you hunt a legendary, you catch two legendaries. Its plural matches the old book of legends, but the gaming noun is a fresh clipping of the adjective, carrying its sense of rarity and power, not a revival of the obsolete one.
Less common meanings
- 6A book or collection of legends, especially accounts of the lives of saints.
The abbey's legendary contained the stories of dozens of martyrs.
Pilgrims listened as the priest read from the worn old legendary.
Similarlegendarium
Note
The older noun, which arose alongside the adjective in the sixteenth century. English took it in the 1510s from Medieval Latin legendārium, with Old French legendier as a relative, to name a book of legends, above all saints' lives. It is now obsolete, and its synonym legendarium is the safer choice in modern writing. Its plural is legendaries.
- 7A person who recounts or relates legends.
The court's legendary recited heroic tales each evening.
An aging legendary passed his stories on to a young apprentice.
Note
A teller rather than a tale: the person who recited legends, a role the word no longer names. It is obsolete and turns up only in older texts. In modern prose, a person called "a legendary" would be read as the adjective with its noun dropped, so a writer who means the storyteller should choose another word. Its origin is the one told under the book of legends.
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Origin
Formed from 'legend' + '-ary', from Medieval Latin 'legendārius'. It was earlier a noun (1510s) meaning 'a collection of legends': from Medieval Latin 'legendārium' and Old French 'legendier', ultimately from Latin 'legenda'. In English, both the noun and the adjective first appeared in the 16th century.