Chinese character 軼

It joins the ideas of overtaking and things left outside the record.

A Han dynasty Chinese character dictionary, 說文解字, explains it through one cart coming out ahead of another.

That image connects to senses such as surpassing or breaking through; dictionaries also record a sense of sudden intrusion or attack. In another branch, 軼 describes material scattered, lost, or omitted from the record, as in 軼事 and 軼聞.

軼 vs 逸: are they the same?

They are separate characters, though two compounds allow variant spellings.

A Taiwan language guide treats 軼聞/逸聞 and 軼事/逸事 as variant spellings with the same anecdotal sense, while explaining 軼 through overtaking and 逸 through escape. Japanese references preserve overlapping but non-identical senses, including surpassing, excelling, disappearance, and overflow; they also record historical reading links between 軼 and 逸, 溢, 轍, and 迭. In simplified Chinese, 軼 is written 轶.

Someone sent me 軼 alone — what should I do?

Ask what word it belongs to.

By itself, 軼 does not tell you whether the writer means surpassing, a sudden intrusion, or something lost from the record. Read the surrounding word or sentence; a lone character does not signal a personal tone.