Anecdotal

How to spell anecdotal

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anecdotal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anecdotal mean?

1. adjectiveBased on personal accounts or individual reports rather than systematic research or hard data.

Anecdotal in a sentence

• The report relied on anecdotal evidence instead of a controlled study.

• The doctor warned that anecdotal claims about the supplement proved nothing.

Where does anecdotal come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek anekdota, the neuter plural meaning literally 'things not given out' or 'things unpublished'. It was built from an-, meaning 'not', joined to ekdotos, 'published' or 'given out', which itself comes from ek 'out' and didonai 'to give'. The term gained fame from the Byzantine historian Procopius, who titled a private, unpublished work of gossipy court stories the Anekdota; through Latin and then French this came into English in the 1600s as 'anecdote', a short, unofficial account. The adjective 'anecdotal' followed, describing something based on personal stories rather than rigorous evidence. Remembering that the original sense was 'unpublished, off the record' helps explain its modern flavour of casual, informal testimony, and the single c before the d is the spelling detail that most often trips writers.

How the word is built

• anecdot(e) (from Greek anekdota: things unpublished)
• -al (adjective suffix)