Scientists debunk the myth that gum stays in the human stomach for seven years.
An invented story, theory, or concept.
A commonly-held but false belief, a common misconception; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing; a popular conception about a real person or event which exaggerates or idealizes reality.
A person or thing held in excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration based on popular legend
Such stories as a genre.
A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding a god, a hero, the origin of the world or of a people, etc.
The viewpoint that an external reality exists independent of observation.
A concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary.
A doctrine that universals are real—they exist and are distinct from the particulars that instantiate them.
An artistic representation of reality as it is.