noun
anecdote
AN-ik-doht/ˈænɪkdəʊt/
A short account of an interesting or amusing incident.
The woman tells an amusing anecdote about a gull stealing her sandwich.
Etymology
The pieces mean 'not given out,' hence 'unpublished.' Procopius's unpublished, gossip-filled memoirs helped associate the word with private revelations, which developed into the sense of a brief, amusing story.
In context
interesting anecdote much later during World War II the British artillery officer Tony Clark refused or refrained from shelling Sansa pulcro because he remembered reading that aldus Huxley had described the resurrection as the greatest painting
More examples
- The biography includes a revealing anecdote from her childhood.
- Personal anecdotes make the lecture easier to follow.
- One anecdote cannot establish how common the problem is.
Forms
anecdote · anecdotes
Similar words
- story
- Broader; can be long, fictional, or entirely impersonal.
- recollection
- Emphasizes remembering rather than a compact interesting account.