Wordology, Facts and Factoids

A “Fact” means something that is unquestionably true. Merriam Webster says it is the “quality of being actual.”

“Factoid” has two distinct definitions, one being more or less a subset of “Fact”, the other not meaning the same thing as “Fact”. The first definition is:  “an invented fact, believed to be true because of its appearance in print.” The second is from Merriam-Webster: “a briefly stated and usually trivial fact”.