diff --git a/doc/en/reference/reference.rst b/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
index 4c5e668d2..9cb3fba40 100644
--- a/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
+++ b/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
@@ -936,7 +936,7 @@ pytest treats some global variables in a special manner when defined in a test m
 **Tutorial**: :ref:`customizing-test-collection`
 
 Can be declared in *conftest.py files* to exclude test directories or modules.
-Needs to be ``list[str]``.
+Needs to be a list of paths (``str``, :class:`pathlib.Path` or any :class:`os.PathLike`).
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
diff --git a/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py b/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
index 144f1c9d1..624fbd02f 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
@@ -1445,9 +1445,7 @@ class Config:
         modpath = Path(mod.__file__).parent
         values: List[Path] = []
         for relroot in relroots:
-            if isinstance(relroot, Path):
-                pass
-            elif isinstance(relroot, LEGACY_PATH):
+            if isinstance(relroot, os.PathLike):
                 relroot = Path(relroot)
             else:
                 relroot = relroot.replace("/", os.sep)
diff --git a/testing/test_collection.py b/testing/test_collection.py
index f015578e2..33087fd2e 100644
--- a/testing/test_collection.py
+++ b/testing/test_collection.py
@@ -367,12 +367,19 @@ class TestCustomConftests:
     def test_collectignore_exclude_on_option(self, pytester: Pytester) -> None:
         pytester.makeconftest(
             """
-            # potentially avoid dependency on pylib
-            from _pytest.compat import legacy_path
             from pathlib import Path
-            collect_ignore = [legacy_path('hello'), 'test_world.py', Path('bye')]
+
+            class MyPathLike:
+                def __init__(self, path):
+                    self.path = path
+                def __fspath__(self):
+                    return "path"
+
+            collect_ignore = [MyPathLike('hello'), 'test_world.py', Path('bye')]
+
             def pytest_addoption(parser):
                 parser.addoption("--XX", action="store_true", default=False)
+
             def pytest_configure(config):
                 if config.getvalue("XX"):
                     collect_ignore[:] = []