the stuff of legend

idiomatic phrase

variants or less commonly the stuff of legends

1

: someone or something that is told about in legend

Dragons are still the stuff of legend. But in Slovenia, a bizarre, cave-dwelling … salamander serves as a worthy, real-life stand-in.

—Olivia Lowenberg

2

: someone or something that is very famous or memorable

Earlier that summer, Saito faced off with Tanaka in Japan's national high school championships, which are at least the equivalent of March Madness in the United States. Their battles were the stuff of legend, but Saito's team won and he struck out Tanaka for the final out of the deciding game.

—Anthony Rieber

For those of us who ran around in it, the blizzard of '78 was the stuff of legend, an unrelenting force of nature that smacked Boston upside the head for about a week.

—Bob Flaherty

The contest between ruling authorities and peasants over whether or not martyrs would be commemorated could itself become the stuff of legends.

—Anne Walthall

Examples of the stuff of legend in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Hailed as one of the greatest survival stories ever, it’s become the stuff of legends — and its ship an elusive treasure underneath the sea. —Ellise Shafer, Variety, 1 Nov. 2024

Clemente, 37 at the time, thanked his parents in a postgame interview that became the stuff of legends in Puerto Rico for a simple reason: The man at the pinnacle of sports spoke Spanish on national TV. —Rafael Bernal, The Hill, 29 Oct. 2024

Details surrounding the days leading up to his demise are the stuff of legend. —Marina Watts, People.com, 7 Oct. 2024

The 1800s Appalachian families lived around the Kentucky-West Virginia border, and their decades-long feud, involving lying, cheating, stealing, and even murder, is the stuff of legends. —Tara Massouleh McCay, Southern Living, 20 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1919, in the meaning defined at sense 1