Etymology

black legend

Today it means: Historiographical phenomenon in which a sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting and introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualized facts is directed against particular persons, nations or institutions with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of them. Full definition →

Spanish Leyenda Negra ← French légende noire
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black legend · noun, proper noun1

  1. French · calque oflégende noire
  2. Spanish · calque ofLeyenda Negra
  3. English todayblack legend

Genericized use of Black Legend, a calque from Spanish Leyenda Negra coined by Julián Juderías in his 1914 book La Leyenda Negra y la Verdad Histórica. The Spanish term is in turn likely a calque of French légende noire, an expression by Arthur Lévy in his 1893 book Napoléon intime.

Black Legend · proper noun2

  1. Spanish · calque ofLeyenda Negra
  2. English todayBlack Legend

Calque of Spanish Leyenda Negra (literally “Black Legend”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.