anecdotal
/ˌanɪkˈdəʊtl
/adjective
1(Of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research: while there was much anecdotal evidence there was little hard fact...
- Historic accounts of this era give no indication of any negative impact to fish populations and in fact, anecdotal accounts reflect quite the opposite.
- Theory is paraded as fact, anecdotal accounts as hard data.
- There is a reliable anecdotal account that, in my opinion, gives a partial answer to the question.
Synonyms
informal, unreliable, based on hearsay;
unscientific
1.1Characterized by or fond of telling anecdotes: her book is anecdotal and chatty...
- In a witty, anecdotal and at times serious speech, Pierce said he was the eldest male member of a family of eight - seven boys and a girl.
- Are we in for a pleasant, anecdotal account of Didion's family connections with a pioneering past, you wonder.
- The narrative is tangential and anecdotal, a linear mosaic of small failures and smaller successes, interspersed with laugh out loud one-liners.
1.2(Of a painting) depicting small narrative incidents: nineteenth century French anecdotal paintings...
- Over the next 20 years his anecdotal paintings of peasant life, based on a close study of Dutch 17th-century genre painters, were universally admired.
- Schad's graphic work, often anecdotal and illustrational, is evocative of George Grosz but without the muscle.
- It is their freedom from the traditional literary, anecdotal, or moralistic associations of painting that has caused him to be regarded as one of the pioneers of modern art.
Synonyms
narrative, full of stories, packed/crammed with incident
Derivatives
anecdotalist
- One the most accomplished anecdotalists was Henry McKenzie, author of The Man of Feeling, who counted among his friends Robert Burns, a past master of cutting wit.
- As one interviewer noted: ‘He's not a barrel of chuckles to talk to - not a anecdotalist like Ben Affleck.’
- He's not an historian, he's not an archivist, he's not an anecdotalist.
anecdotally
- I have been told, anecdotally, that Maldon is one of the most vibrant and healthy towns in Essex, if not the east of England.
- While I have no statistical evidence to support this, I have noticed anecdotally that ‘local’ students in Ph.D. programs are among the least likely to complete the dissertation.
- In every indicator I get - anecdotally, talking to friends in all these swing states, looking at early voting patterns - is that this will be an extraordinarily large turnout.