• n. 軼事；奇聞；秘史

前綴an-, 沒有。前綴ec-,同ex-, 向外。詞根don，給予，見donate, 捐贈，過去分詞dot.

希臘前綴an-表否定，ecdote在一起表things given out，合起來的本意是“unpublish things”。是6世紀東羅馬帝國歷史學家Procopius的著作，因為講述了當時皇后Theodora成為皇后前的不光彩的經歷，所以Procopius死后才出版。也被稱為“Secret History”。

anecdote

anecdote: [17] In Greek, anékdotos meant ‘unpublished’. It was formed from the negative prefix an- and ékdotos, which in turn came from the verb didónai ‘give’ (a distant cousin of English donation and date) plus the prefix ek- ‘out’ – hence ‘give out, publish’. The use of the plural anékdota by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Procopius as the title of his unpublished memoirs of the life of the Emperor Justinian, which revealed juicy details of court life, played a major part in the subsequent use of Latin anecdota for ‘revelations of secrets’, the sense which anecdote had when it first came into English.

The meaning ‘brief amusing story’ did not develop until the mid 18th century.
=> date, donation

anecdote (n.)

1670s, "secret or private stories," from French anecdote (17c.) or directly from Greek anekdota "things unpublished," neuter plural of anekdotos, from an- "not" (see an-) + ekdotos "published," from ek- "out" + didonai "to give" (see date (n.1)).

Procopius' 6c. Anecdota, unpublished memoirs of Emperor Justinian full of court gossip, gave the word a sense of "revelation of secrets," which decayed in English to "brief, amusing stories" (1761).

1. He departed from the text to tell an anecdote.

他偏離課文講起了一則軼事.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》

2. He introduced his speech with a humorous anecdote.

他講了一則幽默軼事作為講演的引子.

來自《現代漢英綜合大詞典》

3. The image of the fox as a pest is grossly exaggerated in anecdote and folklore.

狐貍的害人精形象在傳聞和民間故事中遭到嚴重的夸大。

來自柯林斯例句

4. Pete was telling them an anecdote about their mother.

皮特正在給他們講一件他們母親的趣聞。

來自辭典例句

5. He has a talent for recollection and anecdote.

他在記憶力和講述趣聞軼事方面頗具天賦。

來自辭典例句