anekdotos

Greek anekdotos combined an (not) with ekdotos (given out), from ekdidonai (to give out, to publish). Anekdotos meant unpublished, not released to the public — things kept private. The word appeared in the title of Procopius of Caesarea's 6th-century Byzantine history Anekdota, a secret history of the Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora that was too scandalous to publish during their lifetimes. The anekdota were the unpublished stories.

Procopius's Anekdota (also known as the Secret History) was scathingly critical of Justinian and Theodora, alleging corruption, cruelty, sexual promiscuity, and demonic possession. The work circulated privately after Procopius's death and was not published until 1623, when a manuscript was discovered in the Vatican Library. The title Anekdota — unpublished things — gave English its word anecdote through a strange path.

As the word passed through French anecdote and into English by the 17th century, it shifted from 'unpublished secret' to 'a short narrative of a particular incident' — often a revealing personal story, the kind of private observation that illuminates a public figure or historical event. The secret history became the illuminating story.

Today anecdote has a complex status in intellectual discourse. 'Anecdotal evidence' is used dismissively — contrasted with systematic data, the plural of anecdote is not data. But in history, biography, and literature, the anecdote is a primary vehicle of meaning: the revealing detail that captures character or context in a way that statistical summaries cannot.