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Hype vs Myth - What's the difference?

hype | myth |

As nouns the difference between hype and myth

is that hype is promotion or propaganda; especially, exaggerated claims while myth is 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.

As a verb hype

is to promote heavily; to advertise or build up.

hype

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Promotion or propaganda; especially, exaggerated claims.
  • After all the hype for the diet plan, only the results ended up slim.

    Verb

    (hyp)
  • To promote heavily; to advertise or build up.
  • They started hyping the new magazine months before its release.

    myth

    English

    Alternative forms

    * mythe (rare or archaic)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • 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.
  • (uncountable) Such stories as a genre.
  • Myth was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted upon by his surroundings.'' (E. Clodd, ''Myths & Dreams (1885), 7, cited after OED)
  • 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
  • Father Flanagan was legendary, his institution an American myth. (Tucson (Arizona) Citizen, 20 September 1979, 5A/3, cited after OED)
  • A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
  • * Ld. Lytton
  • As for Mrs. Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years.

    See also

    * legend