urban legend

noun

1. a modern story of obscure origin and with little or no supporting evidence that spreads spontaneously in varying forms and often has elements of humor, moralizing, or horror:

   Are there alligators living in the New York City sewer system, or is that just an urban legend?

Word History and Origins

Origin of urban legend¹

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

His sudden obsession with the urban legend Candyman jolts his canvases to life—though it may not be the kind of life he wants.

From Time

Genre conventions are themselves like urban legends, a framework that each new generation adds to and builds upon.

From Time

As a horror figure, Candyman feels like a real-life urban legend that’s always been with us.

From Vox

That story may be Olympic urban legend, but with Nurmi, driven as he was by Finnish sisu, it’s totally credible.

From Outside Online

According to researchers who have studied the “lights out” urban legend, it flourished partly because the summer of 1993 was one of the worst stretches of crime Chicago had ever seen.

From MIT Technology Review

As The Miami Herald declared in a recent headline, “Obamacare enrollees become urban legend.”

From The Daily Beast

I always thought it was an urban legend that the VW Bus is the most dangerous vehicle ever made.

From The Daily Beast

In her deposition, she told plaintiffs attorneys that she considered drug diversion an “urban legend” and a “folktale.”

From The Daily Beast

Think of the readiness to accept the (utterly bogus) urban legend about the Super Bowl leading to wife-beating.

From The Daily Beast

But in 2009, McGillis squashed that urban legend in an interview with the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

From The Daily Beast