translate

English Online Dictionary. What means translate‎? What does translate mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English translaten (“to transport, translate, transform”), from Anglo-Norman translater, from Latin trānslātus, perfect passive participle of trānsferō (“to transport, carry across, translate”). See also -ate (verb-forming suffix). Distant doublet of transfer, see collate and confer, delate and defer, as well as prelate and prefer among others.

In this sense, displaced Old English wendan (“to translate,” also the word for “to turn” and “to change”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹɑːnzˈleɪt/, /tɹænz-/, /tɹɑːns-/, /tɹæns-/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /tɹænzˈleɪt/, /tɹæns-/, /ˈtɹænzˌleɪt/, /ˈtɹæns-/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈtɹɛnz.læɪt/, [ˈtʃɹʷɛ̃nzɫæe̯ʔ(t)]
• Rhymes: -eɪt
• Hyphenation: trans‧late

Verb

translate (third-person singular simple present translates, present participle translating, simple past and past participle translated)

1. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another.
   1. (transitive) To change spoken words or written text (of a book, document, movie, etc.) from one language to another.
   2. (intransitive) To provide a translation of spoken words or written text in another language; to be, or be capable of being, rendered in another language.
   3. (transitive) To express spoken words or written text in a different (often clearer or simpler) way in the same language; to paraphrase, to rephrase, to restate.
   5. (transitive) To change (something) from one form or medium to another.
      1. (transitive, music) To rearrange (a song or music) in one genre into another.
   6. (intransitive) To change, or be capable of being changed, from one form or medium to another.
   7. (transitive, genetics) To generate a chain of amino acids based on the sequence of codons in an mRNA molecule.
2. Senses relating to a change of position.
   1. (transitive, archaic) To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer.
      1. (transitive) To transfer the remains of a deceased person (such as a monarch or other important person) from one place to another; (specifically, Christianity) to transfer a holy relic from one shrine to another.
      2. (transitive, Christianity) To transfer a bishop or other cleric from one post to another.
      3. (transitive, Christianity) Of a holy person or saint: to be assumed into or to rise to Heaven without bodily death; also (figurative) to die and go to Heaven.
      4. (transitive, mathematics) In Euclidean geometry: to transform (a geometric figure or space) by moving every point by the same distance in a given direction.
      5. (transitive, mathematics) To map (the axes in a coordinate system) to parallel axes in another coordinate system some distance away.
      6. (transitive, medicine, obsolete) To cause (a disease or something giving rise to a disease) to move from one body part to another, or (rare) between persons.
      7. (transitive, physics) To subject (a body) to linear motion with no rotation.
      8. (intransitive, physics) Of a body: to be subjected to linear motion with no rotation.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To entrance (“place in a trance”), to cause to lose recollection or sense.

4. (transitive, obsolete, slang) To repair (used shoes, boots or other clothing) for resale.

Usage notes

• Translation (sense 1.1) is often used loosely to describe any act of conversion from one language into another, although formal usage typically distinguishes interpretation as the proper term for conversion of speech.
• While translation attempts to establish equivalent meaning between different texts, the conversion of text from one orthography to another (attempting to roughly establish equivalent sound) is distinguished as transliteration.
• Literal, verbatim, or word-for-word translation (metaphrase) aims to capture as much of the exact expression as possible, while loose or free translation, or paraphrase, aims to capture the general sense or artistic affect of the original text. At a certain point, text which has been too freely translated may be considered an adaptation instead.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

translate (plural translates)

1. (mathematical analysis) In Euclidean spaces: a set of points obtained by adding a given fixed vector to each point of a given set.

Translations

References

Further reading

• translation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation of axes on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (biology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (ecclesiastical) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (geometry) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (physics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (relic) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• translation (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• alterants, tarletans

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁɑ̃.slat/

Verb

translate

1. inflection of translater:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Latin

Participle

trānslāte

1. vocative masculine singular of trānslātus

Middle English

Verb

translate

1. Alternative form of translaten