anecdote
pronunciation
How to pronounce anecdote in British English:
UK [ˈænɪkdəʊt]
How to pronounce anecdote in American English:
US [ˈænɪkdoʊt]
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- Noun:
- short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)
Word Origin
- anecdote
- anecdote: [17] In Greek, anékdotos meant ‘unpublished’. It was formed from the negative prefix an- and ékdotos, which in turn came from the verb didónai ‘give’ (a distant cousin of English donation and date) plus the prefix ek- ‘out’ – hence ‘give out, publish’. The use of the plural anékdota by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Procopius as the title of his unpublished memoirs of the life of the Emperor Justinian, which revealed juicy details of court life, played a major part in the subsequent use of Latin anecdota for ‘revelations of secrets’, the sense which anecdote had when it first came into English.The meaning ‘brief amusing story’ did not develop until the mid 18th century.=> date, donation
- anecdote (n.)
- 1670s, "secret or private stories," from French anecdote (17c.) or directly from Greek anekdota "things unpublished," neuter plural of anekdotos, from an- "not" (see an-) + ekdotos "published," from ek- "out" + didonai "to give" (see date (n.1)). Procopius' 6c. Anecdota, unpublished memoirs of Emperor Justinian full of court gossip, gave the word a sense of "revelation of secrets," which decayed in English to "brief, amusing stories" (1761).
Example
- 1. That little anecdote tells you a lot .
- 2. As the truman anecdote indicates , a president can only control so much .
- 3. It 's a humorous anecdote now ; but the truth it reveals is less than funny .
- 4. He also serves up by far the best anecdote about the real workings of state capitalism .
- 5. Indeed , he was in such high spirits that he even sent me a funny anecdote * .