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A gabfest is a time when people talk and talk — a long chat, a meeting that turns into chatter, a gathering whose main work is conversation. It is informal American English, and it usually smiles a little: nobody is calling it a grave conference. Newspapers sometimes call a political talk show or a long meeting a gabfest, as if a lot was said and not much was decided. The second half, -fest, means a lot of that thing, like a festival of talking. Though actually, fest here is the English use of a German word Fest (festival), which itself goes back to Latin festum. So gabfest is plus that ending, not an old English root that always meant 'meeting'. It is not the right word for a formal conference in an essay; there you would say meeting or long discussion.
閒聊大會、長聊聚會(美式口語,帶點開玩笑)
組成From gab + -fest. Fest comes from German Fest (festival), from Latin festum. In English, -fest on the end of a word means a long, busy event full of that thing.
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,原文照列,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
gabfestnoun/ˈɡæbˌfɛst/
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slangAn occasion (such as a meeting) where people talk at length.
- But he could as well have been talking about the confabulations of the food summit in Rome earlier this year or the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg next month. I have no doubt critics are dusting off the cliches for that one, preparing to denounce one more gabfest.
- Oh, we've been talking about constitutional reform since 1927. I've been going to these gabfests since the fifties.
資料來源:英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary(CC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。