Anecdotalists

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who specialize in or habitually share brief, often personal or entertaining stories; people who rely on or collect casual observations rather than systematic evidence; those who focus on narrating or recounting informal accounts in conversation or writing
2. Persons known for providing short, typically amusing or illustrative tales; proponents of information based on personal experiences or isolated examples rather than rigorous data; humans engaged in sharing informal narratives to support points or simply entertain
3. Those who center on conveying brief, often humorous or insightful stories from personal experience; practitioners who emphasize observational reports over formal study; individuals who use storytelling as a means of communication or explanation without strict verification

Etymology: "Anecdotalists" is the plural of "anecdotalist," a noun for a person who tells or collects anecdotes. The word is built from two parts: "anecdotal," meaning based on short personal accounts or stories rather than systematic evidence, and the suffix "-ist," which marks a person who practices or follows something, as in "novelist" or "cyclist." The base word "anecdotal" comes from "anecdote," which entered English from French and ultimately traces back to Greek "anekdota," meaning "things unpublished." That sense of unpublished material is a useful clue to how the family of words developed: an anecdote was originally a private or secret account, and only later became a short, entertaining story told in conversation.

Synonyms: storytellers, narrators, chroniclers, recounters, relaters