How to Use anecdotal in a Sentence

anecdotal

adjective
  • The research is mixed on whether that’s true or anecdotal.
    Barbara Rodriguez, USA TODAY, 18 Aug. 2020
  • The Pro Bowl may be anecdotal but is a fair gauge of talent or lack thereof.
    Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 20 Jan. 2025
  • At best, the answers were anecdotal, so Olezeski set out to learn more.
    courant.com, 1 Mar. 2022
  • Even in the many Reddit threads on the topic, the anecdotal evidence is mixed.
    Kathleen Hou, The Cut, 2 May 2018
  • Of course, this kind of anecdotal evidence doesn't tell us all that much.
    Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, 1 June 2018
  • To build up these threats, Trump latched on to anecdotal evidence as proof.
    cleveland, 17 Jan. 2021
  • And what’s clear, says Rubin, is that this is not just an anecdotal problem.
    Megan Molteni, Wired, 7 Oct. 2020
  • Much of this reporting comes from anecdotal success since the tech has not yet caught up.
    Norma Watenpaugh, Forbes, 10 June 2022
  • Jackman is one of 30 people who had lived on the streets in the Salem area who died in the past 14 months, according to anecdotal accounts.
    Saphara Harrell, oregonlive, 18 Apr. 2021
  • There’s some good, non-anecdotal evidence more teams would do well to build this way.
    BostonGlobe.com, 22 Sep. 2019
  • And there’s more than anecdotal evidence to back that up.
    Garrett Snyder Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2020
  • One of the sort of benchmark stories about misuse of Wegovy is the anecdotal story about Elon Musk.
    Sheila Cosgrove Baylis, Peoplemag, 2 Feb. 2023
  • This story doesn’t need an anecdotal lead because each of us has a story of our own.
    Shari Rudavsky, The Indianapolis Star, 4 Sep. 2020
  • Some gays left the city, although the facts of that are more anecdotal than empirical.
    Sharon Coolidge, The Enquirer, 10 Aug. 2021
  • The list is anecdotal and not evidence of any sweeping fraud.
    Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner, 16 Oct. 2020
  • They were considered by my own anecdotal research to be the best band in Birmingham for a few years there in the 1960s.
    Mike Oliver | Moliver@al.com, al, 23 Nov. 2019
  • Malow has seen a lot of anecdotal evidence to back that up at the sleep clinic.
    NBC News, 16 Feb. 2020
  • So anyway, and a fair amount of sort of anecdotal market research on it and then the numbers sort of spoke for themselves.
    Fortune Editors, Fortune, 29 May 2024
  • The thing about feelings is, the anecdotal lede is all about inciting a feeling.
    Danielle Tcholakian, Longreads, 25 Mar. 2018
  • There was plenty of anecdotal evidence of that, and data seemed to confirm the state of mind.
    Michael Smolens Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Aug. 2020
  • Despite the overall support for the cause, the anecdotal evidence has not shown up in the data.
    Michelle Cheng, Quartz at Work, 22 Jan. 2020
  • So far, much of the evidence of the success or failure of the new ordinance is anecdotal.
    Calmatters, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2024
  • The album is full of the anecdotal bars that made Von a star, along with some of his most vulnerable moments on record.
    Dewayne Gage, Rolling Stone, 4 Mar. 2022
  • David Casarett told the Observer that anecdotal reports of success stories tend to float to the top.
    Cassie Cope, charlotteobserver, 20 Apr. 2018
  • The Fed’s 12 districts survey business contacts eight times a year as an anecdotal gauge of the state of the economy.
    Paul O'Donnell, Dallas News, 2 Sep. 2020
  • And for some who are eager to conceive, the anecdotal assurance may be enough.
    Fiorella Valdesolo, Vogue, 20 Dec. 2024
  • To start, the doctor wanted to hear the anecdotal evidence.
    Eric Boodman, STAT, 17 May 2018
  • But anecdotal evidence and a bit of mom-sense can tell us a lot about what might be happening.
    Los Angeles Times, 12 July 2021
  • Still, the large numbers are in keeping with anecdotal reports from progressive places such as Chicago and Austin, Texas.
    Nara Schoenberg, Chicago Tribune, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Instead, the evaluation – while several pages long – is purely anecdotal.
    Madeline Mitchell, The Enquirer, 2 July 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'anecdotal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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