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Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage c. 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda. [7] In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends.
Within academic circles, the term myth is often used specifically to refer to origin and cosmogonic myths. Folklorists, for example, reserve the term myth for stories that describe creation. Stories that do not primarily focus on origins are categorized as legend or folk tale, which are distinct from myths according to folklorists. [5]
The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word "mythology" in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths', 'the interpretation of fables', or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate's Troy Book (c. 1425).
The word "news" is simply a plural form of new, and is attested in this sense from the early 15th century. [34] Pom or pommy is an Australian English, New Zealand English, and South African English term for a person of British descent or origin. The exact origins of the term remain obscure (see here for further information). A legend persists ...
The Online Etymology Dictionary or Etymonline, sometimes abbreviated as OED (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary, which the site often cites), is a free online dictionary that describes the origins of English words, written and compiled by Douglas R. Harper. [1]
The word bogeyman, used to describe a monster in English, may have derived from Middle English bugge or bogge, which means 'frightening specter', 'terror', or 'scarecrow'. It relates to boggart, bugbear (from bug, meaning 'goblin' or 'scarecrow' and bear) an imaginary demon in the form of a bear that ate small children. It was also used to mean ...
A legend exists in various forms that giants were either the original inhabitants, or the founders of the land named Albion. John Milton told the story in his History of Britain (1670) In Book I he recounts that the land was “subdu’d by Albion a Giant, Son of Neptune; who call’d the Iland after his own name, and rul’d it 44 Years.
Related to modern German leiche or modern Dutch lijk, both meaning 'corpse') is a type of undead creature. Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith 's " The Empire of the Necromancers " ( 1932 ), had used lich as a general term for any corpse, animated or inanimate, before the term's specific use in fantasy role-playing games.