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

His tender Peking duck is the stuff of legend and his Prawn Mee was named one of the Best Restaurant Meals in America by Bon Appetit magazine in 2023. —Keith Pandolfi, The Enquirer, 10 Dec. 2024

But their reunion isn’t exactly the stuff of legend. —Amy Wilkinson, Vulture, 23 Nov. 2024

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

Word History

First Known Use

1919, in the meaning defined at sense 1