Phrase guide

Black Legend

name · noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

name

Meaning 1

The depiction of Spain and Spaniards (or, by extension, all Hispanics and their countries of origin) as bloodthirsty and cruel, greedy and fanatical, especially concerning the colonial period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: historiography, history, human-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

name

Meaning 2

Alternative letter-case form of Black Legend.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: alt-of

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

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.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Calque of Spanish Leyenda Negra (literally “Black 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.

Across languages

Translations

11 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Dutch: Zwarte Legende — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Finnish: musta legenda — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • French: Légende Noire — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Polish: Czarna Legenda hiszpanii — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Portuguese: Lenda Negra — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Spanish: Leyenda Negra — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Swedish: svarta legenden — the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical
  • Finnish: musta legenda — Translations
  • French: légende noire — Translations
  • Polish: czarna legenda — Translations
  • Spanish: leyenda negra — Translations