translation

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /trænzˈleɪ.ʃən/, /trɑːnzˈleɪ.ʃən/, /trænsˈleɪ.ʃən/, US /trænzˈleɪ.ʃən/, /trænsˈleɪ.ʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English translacioun, borrowed from Old French translacion or directly from Latin trānslātiō (“a carrying across, transfer”),^[2][3][4] a noun of action from trānslātus, used as the past participle of trānsferre (“to carry across, copy, translate”).^[2][3] See translate and transfer.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Turning a text from one language into another, and the result: before 1340 in the OED, the mid-14th century in Etymonline.^[6][2] Transfer from one place or condition to another is from before 1350,^[6] especially moving a saint's relics to a new shrine.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Being taken up to heaven, originally without dying, as Enoch was, is from 1382 in the OED and the late 14th century in Etymonline.^[6][2] The moving of a bishop to another see and of a church feast to another date are from about 1530.^[6] In rhetoric it meant metaphor from 1534 to 1704.^[7] In physics, motion from one place to another without rotation is from 1715.^[6][7] Expressing something in simpler words is from 1838,^[7] and in biology the conversion of genetic information into proteins from 1955.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1340 – translation of a text.^[6]
• before 1350 – transfer.^[6]
• 1382 – being taken to heaven.^[6]
• 1715 – in physics.^[6]
• 1955 – in biology.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The act of putting words from one language into another.
2. A text or speech that has been translated.
3. The process of changing something into another form.
4. (physics, mathematics) A movement in which every point of a body moves the same distance in the same direction.
5. (biology) The process by which a protein is made from the information in messenger RNA.

Word family

• translational
• translationally
• pretranslation
• retranslation
• machine translation
• loan translation

Related words

• translate
• translative
• translator
• translatory
• untranslatability
• untranslatable
• untranslated
• transfer

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)