translate Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb restate (words) from one language into another language
    render; interpret.
    • I have to translate when my in-laws from Austria visit the U.S.
    • Can you interpret the speech of the visiting dignitaries?
    • She rendered the French poem into English
    • He translates for the U.N.
  2. verb change from one form or medium into another
    transform.
    • Braque translated collage into oil
  3. verb make sense of a language
    read; understand; interpret.
    • She understands French
    • Can you read Greek?
  4. verb bring to a certain spiritual state
  5. verb change the position of (figures or bodies) in space without rotation
  6. verb be equivalent in effect
    • the growth in income translates into greater purchasing power
  7. verb be translatable, or be translatable in a certain way
    • poetry often does not translate
    • Tolstoy's novels translate well into English
  8. verb subject to movement in which every part of the body moves parallel to and the same distance as every other point on the body
  9. verb express, as in simple and less technical language
    • Can you translate the instructions in this manual for a layman?
    • Is there a need to translate the psychiatrist's remarks?
  10. verb determine the amino-acid sequence of a protein during its synthesis by using information on the messenger RNA

WordNet

Trans*late" transitive verb
Etymology
f. translatus, used as p. p. of transferre to transfer, but from a different root. See Trans-, and Tolerate, and cf. Translation.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Translated; present participle & verbal noun Translating
Definitions
  1. To bear, carry, or remove, from one place to another; to transfer; as, to translate a tree. Archaic Dryden.
    In the chapel of St. Catharine of Sienna, they show her head- the rest of her body being translated to Rome. Evelyn.
  2. To change to another condition, position, place, or office; to transfer; hence, to remove as by death.
  3. To remove to heaven without a natural death.
    By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translatedhim. Heb. xi. 5.
  4. (Eccl.) To remove, as a bishop, from one see to another. "Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, when the king would have translated him from that poor bishopric to a better, . . . refused." Camden.
  5. To render into another language; to express the sense of in the words of another language; to interpret; hence, to explain or recapitulate in other words.
    Translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. Macaulay.
  6. To change into another form; to transform.
    Happy is your grace, That can translatethe stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style. Shak.
  7. (Med.) To cause to remove from one part of the body to another; as, to translate a disease.
  8. To cause to lose senses or recollection; to entrance. Obs. J. Fletcher.
Trans*late intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To make a translation; to be engaged in translation.

Webster 1913