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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

translate.

Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/tɹɑːnzˈleɪt/Received-Pronunciation/tɹænz-/Received-Pronunciation/tɹɑːns-/Received-Pronunciation/tɹæns-/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To change spoken words or written text (of a book, document, movie, etc.) from one language to another.

    transitive
    Hans translated my novel into Welsh.
  2. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To provide a translation of spoken words or written text in another language; to be, or be capable of being, rendered in another language.

    intransitive
    Hans translated for us while we were in Marrakesh.
    That idiom doesn’t really translate.
  3. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. 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.

    transitive
  4. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To change (something) from one form or medium to another.

    transitive
    The director faithfully translated their experiences to film.
  5. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To change (something) from one form or medium to another. To rearrange (a song or music) in one genre into another.

    transitive
  6. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To change, or be capable of being changed, from one form or medium to another.

    intransitive
    Excellent writing does not necessarily translate well into film.
    His sales experience translated well into his new job as a fund-raiser.
  7. Senses relating to the change of information, etc., from one form to another. To generate a chain of amino acids based on the sequence of codons in an mRNA molecule.

    transitive
  8. Senses relating to a change of position.

  9. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer.

    archaic · transitive
  10. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. 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.

    archaic · transitive
  11. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. To transfer a bishop or other cleric from one post to another.

    archaic · transitive
  12. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. 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.

    archaic · transitive
  13. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. In Euclidean geometry: to transform (a geometric figure or space) by moving every point by the same distance in a given direction.

    archaic · transitive
  14. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. To map (the axes in a coordinate system) to parallel axes in another coordinate system some distance away.

    archaic · transitive
  15. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. To cause (a disease or something giving rise to a disease) to move from one body part to another, or (rare) between persons.

    archaic · obsolete · transitive
  16. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. To subject (a body) to linear motion with no rotation.

    archaic · transitive
  17. Senses relating to a change of position. To move (something) from one place or position to another; to transfer. Of a body: to be subjected to linear motion with no rotation.

    archaic · intransitive · transitive
  18. To entrance (“place in a trance”), to cause to lose recollection or sense.

    obsolete · transitive
    William was translated by the blow to the head he received, being unable to speak for the next few minutes.
  19. To repair (used shoes, boots or other clothing) for resale.

    obsolete · slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

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”).

noun/tɹɑːnzˈleɪt/Received-Pronunciation/tɹænz-/Received-Pronunciation/tɹɑːns-/Received-Pronunciation/tɹæns-/Received-Pronunciation
  1. In Euclidean spaces: a set of points obtained by adding a given fixed vector to each point of a given set.

Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.