Etymologically
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Pronunciation

  • /tɹænˈskɹɪpʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin trānscrīptiō (“a transcription, transfer”),[2][3][4][5][6] which Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford call Late Latin,[7][3] and partly borrowed from French transcription,[7][2][3][6][8] recorded in French from the 16th century.[2] The Latin noun is a noun of action from trānscrīptus, the past participle of trānscrībō (“to copy, write again elsewhere, transfer”),[2][7][3][8] the source of transcribe, formed from trāns- (“across, over”) and scrībō (“to write”).[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of copying: 1598, in Florio's dictionary A Worlde of Wordes.[2][4] Etymonline also dates the sense "act of copying" to the 1590s.[7]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the act of copying".[9] The product of copying, a transcript, is recorded from 1649 (Etymonline: 1640s),[2][7] and in Roman law the word was used from 1677 for the transfer of a debt.[2] The 19th century added the arrangement of a piece of music for another voice or instrument, first recorded in Webster's dictionary of 1864,[2][4] and transliteration (1870).[2] The 20th century brought recordings: a gramophone record made from a secondary source (1931) and a recording of a broadcast for later use (1932).[2] The biological sense, the copying of the genetic information in DNA into RNA, dates from 1961.[2][7]

Timeline

  • 1598 – the action of copying.[2][4]
  • 1649 – a copy, a transcript.[2]
  • 1677 – in Roman law, the transfer of a debt.[2]
  • 1864 – in music, an arrangement for another instrument or voice.[2]
  • 1870 – transliteration.[2]
  • 1931 – a gramophone record made from a secondary source.[2]
  • 1932 – a recording of a broadcast.[2]
  • 1961 – in biology, the copying of DNA into RNA.[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act or process of transcribing something: The transcription of the interviews took weeks.[10][4][2]
  2. Something transcribed; a written or printed copy, a transcript.[10][4][2]
  3. A written representation of speech in phonetic symbols, or of a word in another script.[10][2]
  4. (music) An arrangement of a piece for an instrument or voice other than the original one.[4][2]
  5. (broadcasting) A recording made for later broadcast.[4][2]
  6. (biology) The process by which the genetic information in DNA is copied into RNA.[2][7]

Word family

  • transcriptional
  • transcriptionally
  • transcriptionist
  • mistranscription
  • pretranscription
  • retranscription

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins