meaning of factoid
âFactoidâ however means something slightly different. The first definition, for which it would seem Iâm incorrect in my usage, is the following: âan invented fact, believed to be true because of its appearance in printâ. This was the original definition coined in 1973 by Norman Mailer. Mailer described a factoid as âfacts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaperâ. He came up with the word, adding the suffix âoidâ as an âoidâ ending implies âsimilar but not the sameâ or more succinctly âlikeâ or âresemblingâ.