factoid

****************************************************************
Are the latest developments in technology making your old 
dictionary look obsolete? Step up to our Eleventh Edition!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?c11.htm&1
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for April 2 is: 

factoid   \FAK-toyd\   noun
     1 : an invented fact believed to be true because of its 
appearance in print 
    *2 : a briefly stated and usually trivial fact 

Example sentence:
     The show consists of entertainment news interspersed with 
video factoids about Hollywood stars.

Did you know?
     We can thank Norman Mailer for the word "factoid"; he 
coined the term in his 1973 book _Marilyn_, about Marilyn 
Monroe. In the book, Mailer explains that factoids are "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." In creating his 
coinage, Mailer relied on "-oid," a suffix that traces back to 
the ancient Greek word "eidos," meaning "appearance" or "form." 
Mailer followed in a long tradition when he chose "-oid"; 
English speakers have been making words from "-oid" since at 
least the 17th century. 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.