Word of the Day:July 26, 2020
epistolary
書信的；用書信表達的；書信體的
adjective | ih-PIST-uh-lair-ee
Definition
1 ： of, relating to, or suitable to a letter
字母的，與字母有關的，或與適用於該字
2 ： contained in or carried on by letters
信件中的：包含在信件中或通過信件進行的
3 ： written in the form of a series of letters
以一系列信件的形式書寫的
Examples
"Jonathan Franzen, with whom he had struck up an epistolary friendship, offered to get together that April when he was in Boston." — D. T. Max, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, 2012
他與喬納森·弗蘭岑建立了書信友誼。那年4月，他在波士頓時，他提出要和喬納森見面。
"It is an epistolary novel, but spare, as opposed to an 18th-century novel like Clarissa, in which female characters write twice a day. Very few letters are exchanged between the friends; sometimes years pass in between." — Don Noble, The Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News, 2 May 2020
這是一部書信體小說，但與18世紀的小說《克拉麗莎》(Clarissa)不同，後者中女性角色每天寫兩次書。朋友之間很少通信，有時，幾年就這樣過去了。
Did You Know?
Epistolary was formed from the noun epistle, which refers to a composition written in the form of a letter to a particular person or group. In its original sense, epistle refers to one of the 21 letters (such as those from the apostle Paul) found in the New Testament. Epistle came to English in the 13th century, via Anglo-French and Latin, from the Greek noun epistolē, meaning "message" or "letter." Epistolē, in turn, came from the verb epistellein, meaning "to send to" or "to send from." Epistolary appeared in English four centuries after epistle and can be used to describe something related to or contained in a letter (as in "epistolary greetings") or composed of letters (as in "an epistolary novel").
Epistolary由名詞epistle演變而來，書信指的是寫給特定的人或群體的書信。在最初的意義上，epistle 是指在新約中發現的21封書信之一(例如使徒保羅的書信)。Epistle在13世紀，英語通過英法和拉丁、希臘名詞epistolē,意思是「消息【massage】」或「信【letter】」。反過來，Epistolē來自動詞epistellein,這意味著「發送到【to sent to】」或「發送」【to sent from】。Epistolary在英文中出現的時間比epistle晚了4個世紀，可以用來描述與書信有關或包含在書信中的東西(如「書信式問候【epistolary greetings】」)或由書信組成的東西(如「書信式小說【an epistolary nove】」)。
Word Family Quiz
The above paragraph contains another English word (in addition to epistle) that is related to epistolary. Which word is it?