Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers. 'Mini' and 'factoid' don't mean what you think, with Jess Zafarris
Mar 12, 2026
Jess Zafarris, author and cohost of Words Unraveled who digs into word origins. She reveals how miniature once meant a red pigment, why factoid originally meant a non-fact, and how hello rose to fame via the telephone. She also traces odd name twists behind gasoline and explains methods for researching etymology.
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Miniature Meant Red Not Small
- Miniature originally meant a red paint color, not small size.
- It comes from Latin miniare/minium used to illuminate manuscripts, later shifted because illuminations were small and portrait miniatures borrowed the term.
Factoid Originally Meant Fake Fact
- Factoid originally meant a false or fabricated 'fact,' not a fun trivia item.
- Norman Mailer coined it in 1973 to describe magazine assertions shaped like facts but lacking basis, using suffix -oid intentionally.
How Gasoline Became Gas
- Gasoline's name is an indirect eponym evolving from Casell's 'casaline' and Boyd's respelling to 'gasoline.'
- Americans then reanalyzed it as gas + ole (oil) + -ene, making a liquid called 'gas' common at stations.
