a single fact or statistic variously regarded as being trivial, useless, unsubstantiated, etc.
Origin of factoid
coined (1973) by N. Mailer from fact + -oidfactoid
fac·toidWebster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"factoid." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid>.
APA Style
factoid. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid
factoid
noun
- A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.
- A brief, somewhat interesting fact.
Related Forms:
- fac·toi′dal
adjective
Usage Note: The suffix -oid normally means “resembling, having the appearance of.” Thus, factoid originally referred to a claim that appears reliable or accurate, often because it has been repeated so frequently that people assume it is true. The word still has this meaning for many writers and readers; in our 2013 survey, 59 percent of the Usage Panel accepted it in the sentence The editorial writer relied on numerous factoids that have long been discredited. But factoid is also often used to mean a brief, somewhat interesting fact, and this sense has become common in recent decades. Some 64 percent of the Panel accepted this usage in the sentence Each issue of the magazine begins with a list of factoids, like how many pounds of hamburger were consumed in Texas last month. As the ballot results indicate, neither usage is overwhelmingly approved. If you use the word factoid, be sure the sentence makes it clear whether you are referring to a spurious claim, on the one hand, or an isolated, trivial, or mildly intriguing fact, on the other.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"factoid." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid>.
APA Style
factoid. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid
Noun
(plural factoids)
- An inaccurate statement or statistic believed to be true because of broad repetition, especially if cited in the media.
- An interesting item of trivia.
Origin
fact + -oid; coined by Norman Mailer in Marilyn (1973): "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority".
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
Link to this page
Cite this page
MLA Style
"factoid." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 14 January 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid>.
APA Style
factoid. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/factoid
