- anecdote
- 1670s, "secret or private stories," from Fr., from Gk. anekdota "things unpublished," neut. pl. of anekdotos, from an- "not" + ekdotos "published," from ek- "out" + didonai "to give" (see date (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 Anecdota, unpublished memoirs of Emperor Justinian full of court gossip, gave the word a sense of "revelation of secrets," which decayed in Eng. to "brief, amusing stories" (1761). Related: Anecdotal (1836). Anecdotage "garrulous old age" is a jocular formation of De Quincey's from 1823.