"urban myth" meaning in English

See urban myth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: urban myths [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} urban myth (plural urban myths)
  1. A widely circulated story, often believed to be true by the teller, but usually distorted, exaggerated or fabricated for sensational effect, and often having elements of humour or horror. Wikipedia link: urban myth Categories (topical): Folklore Synonyms: urban legend, myth, legend, folk tale
    Sense id: en-urban_myth-en-noun-FAPfLTii Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for urban myth meaning in English (1.9kB)

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  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        {
          "ref": "2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, page 67",
          "text": "The Circle generated urban myths: the man who died on it and then went round all day; the language school that conducted its classes on Circle trains, the collective daily fare being cheaper than office rental.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 August 26, Tim Dunn, “Great railway bores of our time!”, in Rail, page 46",
          "text": "The urban myth of the sun shining through Box Tunnel on Brunel's birthday may have been knocked on the head, but in its portal facing designs he created structures which have stood the test of time well.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A widely circulated story, often believed to be true by the teller, but usually distorted, exaggerated or fabricated for sensational effect, and often having elements of humour or horror."
      ],
      "id": "en-urban_myth-en-noun-FAPfLTii",
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        [
          "distort",
          "distort"
        ],
        [
          "exaggerate",
          "exaggerate"
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        [
          "fabricate",
          "fabricate"
        ],
        [
          "sensation",
          "sensation"
        ],
        [
          "effect",
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          "humour",
          "humour"
        ],
        [
          "horror",
          "horror"
        ]
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "urban legend"
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        {
          "word": "myth"
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        {
          "word": "legend"
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      "wikipedia": [
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          "ref": "2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, page 67",
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    }
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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