translate

Definition

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

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”).

Example Sentences

• "Hans translated my novel into Welsh."
• "[H]e [Theodore Beza] tranſlateth animam, a Carcaſe: (ſo calling our Sauiour Christes bodie, irreuerently, and wickedly) he tranſlateth infernum, graue."
• ""Fool!" said the Tzar [Peter the Great], turning to the monk, "what did I bid you do with the book?" "To translate it, Sire!" "Is this then a translation?" replied the Sovereign, pointing at the same time to a paragraph in the original, where the author had spoken harshly of Russia, and of the character of its inhabitants, but which the good-natured monk had in part omitted, and in part softened down in the most flattering manner to the nation. "Hence!" added the incensed monarch, "and be careful how thou translatest the work faithfully. It is not to flatter my subjects that I bade thee put the book into Russian and print it; but rather to correct them, by placing them under their eye the opinion which foreigners entertain of them, in order that they may at length know what they once were, and what they are now through my exertions.""

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