A new word meaning for English learners. "Legend".

[phreadom]

I was just showing the people in the chat some previews of the new forum design, and used the word "legend", which seemed to have an unfamiliar meaning for chiyon-san, so I made a little explanation to share.

forumlegend2.png (39.67 KiB) Viewed 1840 times

In this sense, a "legend" means "a table on a map, chart, or the like, listing and explaining the symbols used" or "explanatory matter accompanying a table, map, chart, etc ".

Most people are only familiar with the sense of "legend" meaning a "fable" or "ancient tale".

[JaySee]

The word comes from Latin "legenda", i.e. "things to be read". With that in mind, it may be a bit easier to understand how it could have got these two (seemingly) completely unrelated meanings in English.

[phreadom]

The word comes from Latin "legenda", i.e. "things to be read". With that in mind, it may be a bit easier to understand how it could have got these two (seemingly) completely unrelated meanings in English.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=legend

If that sheds any more light on it?

[JaySee]

Yes, that was more or less what I was trying to say.

[becki_kanou]

And for any Japanese learners, it's called 凡例 (はんれい).