legend, legendary

   The British biographer Lytton Strachey once described Florence Nightingale as "a living legend in her own lifetime" (as opposed, apparently, to a dead legend in her own lifetime) and thereby created a cliche that we could well do without. Properly, a legend is a story that may have some basis in fact but is mostly fanciful. King Arthur and Robin Hood are legendary figures. The term can fairly be extended to those people or things whose fame is such as to inspire myths (Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, Rolls-Royces), but the word is often used too loosely, as here: "Doctors call it Munchausen's syndrome, after the legendary. . . Baron Hierony-mous Karl Friedrich von Miinchhausen, who spun fantastic and exaggerated stories about his experiences as a German cavalry officer" (New York Times). To attach the word to a man whose fame exists largely within medical circles is to use it too casually.