[a. Fr. anecdote, or ad. its source, med.L. anecdota (see sense 1), a. Gr. ἀνέκδοτα things unpublished, f. ἀν priv. + ἔκδοτ-ος published, f. ἐκ-διδόναι to give out, publish: applied by Procopius to his ‘Unpublished Memoirs’ of the Emperor Justinian, which consisted chiefly of tales of the private life of the court; whence the application of the name to short stories or particulars.]
1. pl. Secret, private or hitherto unpublished narratives or details of history. (At first, and now again occas. used in L. form anecdota.)
1676. Marvell, Mr. Smirke, Wks. 1875, IV. 71. A man … might make a pleasant story of the anecdota of that meeting.
1686. F. Spence (title), Ἀνέκδοτα Έτερουριακά [Anecdotes of Florence], or the secret History of the House of Medicis [a translation of Varillas’ Anecdotes de Florence].
1727. Swift, Gulliver, III. viii. 230. Those who pretend to write anecdotes, or secret history.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Anecdotes, Anecdota, a term used by some authors, for the titles of Secret Histories; that is, of such as relate the secret affairs and transactions of princes; speaking with too much freedom, or too much sincerity, of the manner and conduct of persons in authority, to allow of their being made public.
1769. Burke, State Nat., Wks. II. 157. Professing even industriously, in this publick matter, to avoid anecdotes, I say nothing of those famous reconciliations and quarrels which weakened the body.
1882. Pall Mall G., 23 Oct., 5/1. The biographer’s promise to dispel by means of ‘anecdota’ the common impression that Mdme. de Staël and her mother did not get on very well together, is a remarkably rash promise.
2. The narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, told as being in itself interesting or striking. (At first, An item of gossip.)
1761. Yorke, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 483, IV. 429. Monsieur Coccei will tell you all the anecdotes of London better than I can.
1769. Junius Lett., xxix. 133. The anecdote was referred to, merely to show how ready a man [etc.].
1789. Boswell, Lett. (1857), 311. It [life of Johnson] will certainly be … full of literary and characteristical anecdotes (which word, by the way, Johnson always condemned, as used in the sense that the French, and we from them, use it, as signifying particulars).
1806. Mar. Edgeworth, Forester (1832), 160. Telling little anecdotes to his disadvantage.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Demerara, i. 12. He told some anecdotes of Alfred’s childhood.
Mod. An after-dinner anecdote.
b. collect.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, III. ii. 95. A companion who knew everything, everyone, full of wit and anecdote.
3. Comb., as anecdote-book, -loving; anecdote-monger, a retailer of anecdotes.
1862. Burton, Bk.-hunter, II. 125. Irish bulls … manufactured for the … anecdote-books betray their artificial origin.
1836. Edin. Rev., LXIII. 364. By no means so explanatory as his anecdote-loving master could desire. Ibid. (1807), X. 43. The large tribe of anecdote-mongers.
1850. Maurice, Mor. Philos., 164. The gossiping anecdote-mongers of later Greece.
