Words & WritingGreek → English
Anecdote
/ˈænɪkdoʊt/noun
A short account of a real incident, told for interest or amusement.
The Greek roots
ἀν-
an-
not
ἔκδοτος
ékdotos
given out, published
Literally: “things not published”
The story of the word
Procopius wrote an official history of Justinian's reign, and then a second one he could not publish while the emperor lived, crammed with the court's financial and sexual squalor. It circulated as the Ἀνέκδοτα, the unpublished things. English took anecdote in the 1670s meaning secret history, then any unpublished scrap, then the story told at dinner. The medical anecdote, one case that proves nothing, is the same word wearing a lab coat.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1670s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
antidotedoseanodyne
In a sentence
He had one anecdote about de Gaulle and used it at every dinner.