Pronounced: LIB-uhr-teen, noun/adj
Notes: This word is not used much anymore
Yesterday’s word
The word factoid means
- an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print
- a briefly stated and usually trivial fact
First usage
Our word came into English in the 1970s
Background / Comments
When our word was first coined (by Norman Mailer), he meant it in the first definition above. The suffix -oid came from the ancient Greek word eidos (appearance; form). Just as “humanoid” refers to something that appears human (but isn’t), so was factoid originally used. The meaning has changed over time and now is used primarily with the second definition above.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 