Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
alt. A real or mythical person who is widely revered by ordinary people, for championing their interests, values, or aspirations. n. A real or mythical person who is widely revered by ordinary people, for championing their interests, values, or aspirations.
Wikipedia
A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero–real, fictional or mythological–with the sole salient characteristic being the imprinting of his or her name, personality and deeds in the popular consciousness of a people. This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by its historical frequency in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore; and its modern trope status in literature, art and films.
Although some folk heroes are historical public figures, many are not. The lives of folk heroes are generally fictional, their characteristics and deeds often exaggerated to mythic proportions.
The folk hero often begins life as a normal person, but is transformed into someone extraordinary by significant life events, often in response to social injustice, and sometimes in response to natural disasters.
One major category of folk hero is the defender of the common people against the oppression or corruption of the established power structure. Members of this category of folk hero often, but not necessarily, live outside the law in some way.
Usage examples of "folk hero".
The free-swinging entrepreneur who started up vast enterprises unafraid of defeat or adverse opinion, is a folk hero of industrialism, particularly in the United States.
Simon Jester had come something of a folk hero, a cunning rogue who could thi his nose at the power of Ma'elKoth himself.
Because Willie has become something of a folk hero, they hope he can split the MacMurfee vote.
The only point we need to deal with right now is that Muhammad Ali somehow emerged from one of the meanest and most shameful ordeals any prominent American has ever endured as one of the few real martyrs of that goddamn wretched war in Vietnam and a sort of instant folk hero all over the world, except in the U.
Odd, reallya Corsican folk hero for the French, and a Bohemian one for the Germans.
They are ordered to assassinate a political leader or a folk hero, or defeat the British invaders, or harm themselves, because it is the wish of God, or Jesus, or the Devil, or demons, or angels, or - lately - aliens.
Sam Swartwout will no doubt become a folk hero once the first wave of indignation ceases.
Legend had it that a poet-statesman named Chu Yuan had turned himself into an instant folk hero by throwing himself into Lake Dongting in a province now known as Hunan to protest the inhumane policies of the ruling prince.
This was a complete legend telling of the adventures of Mag-an-Mag, a popular folk hero.