What is an anecdote and what does it mean to offer an anecdote as evidence? The Oxford English dictionary defines an anecdote as the following: An account regarded as unreliable or hearsay, it also defines it as a short musing or interesting story about a real incident or person. So we are left with an inconsistent definition of a term or do we simply say an anecdote is a short tale or story that is unreliable but the teller believes it to be true? Or do we then dismiss both definitions and