Factoid
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An inaccurate statement or statistic believed to be true because of broad repetition, especially if cited in the media.
"Such hedging is necessitated by the lack of in-depth knowledge of the contents, which also gives free rein to the scripting of unsubstantiated factoids concerning the book."
- 2 a brief (usually one sentence and usually trivial) news item wordnet
- 3 An interesting item of trivia; a minor fact. US
"Given a large enough storehouse of words and a fine filter, would it be possible to see cultural change at the micro level, to follow minute fluctuations in human thought processes and activities? Tiny factoids, multiplied endlessly, might assume imposing dimensions."
- 4 something resembling a fact; unverified (often invented) information that is given credibility because it appeared in print wordnet
Example
More examples"From the coffee table photo book to the bathroom factoid anthology to the bedside escapist novel, American literature is designed to match the furniture."
Etymology
From fact + -oid (“similar, but not the same”); coined by American writer Norman Mailer in 1973 in Marilyn: A Biography, defined as "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".
More for "factoid"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.