Etymologically
Log in

tradurre

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 04:00. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /traˈdur.re/[1]

Forms

tradurre (first-person singular present tradùco, first-person singular past historic tradùssi, past participle tradótto, first-person singular imperfect traducévo, auxiliary avére)[1] Old Italian traducere, transdutto; literary tradùcere.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin trādūcere (“to lead across, transfer”), a learned word adapted to the pattern of condurre.[4][5][6][3] The Latin verb is trāns- (“across”) with dūcō (“to lead”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *deuk- (“to draw”), also the source of Gothic 𐍄𐌹𐌿𐌷𐌰𐌽 (tiuhan, “to draw”).[4][1][7] The same verb is French traduire, Spanish traducir and Portuguese traduzir.[5][8][9]

The Latin verb did not mean “to translate”.[4][10] DELI, following Sabbadini (1916), and Devoto credit the new sense to Leonardo Bruni, who misread a passage of Aulus Gellius on an old Greek word “traductum in linguam romanam”, where the verb meant “carried over, transplanted”.[4][10][11] In the 15th century “tradurre” spread with this sense, dropped its others and replaced “traslatare” and “tralatare”, the older words for translating.[4] The bureaucratic sense “to take (a prisoner) from one place to another” is a calque of French “traduire”, a legal term from 1694, and so is “tradurre in atto” “to put into effect”, which Tommaseo advised replacing with “recare in atto”.[4][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Pisan statutes of 1322–1351 (1343), in the sense “to move or bring from one place to another”.[2] DELI and GRADIT date the sense “to carry over” to Iacopo Passavanti in 1354, who writes that original sin “si transfonde e traduce col seme” (“is passed on and handed down with the seed”).[4][14][15] The TLIO already records the sense “to put a text into another language” before 1375.[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to translate” took hold in the 15th century: the past participle tradotto “translated” is in Luigi Pulci before 1484, and Benedetto Varchi, before 1565, uses the verb both for translating from one language into another and for translating into one's own.[4][11] Traduzione is recorded before 1557 and traduttore “author of a translation” before 1565.[4][5]

The old senses of moving and passing on survived in literary use, and Tommaseo already marked the physical sense “to transport” as no longer usual.[15][16] In 1839–1841 the language of administration took from French the sense “to convey”, for prisoners taken to jail or to court, and in 1918 a train carrying troops in wartime was called a tradotta.[4][5] Figurative senses grew from translating: to put a thought in plainer words, or to turn an idea into a work, an act or figures.[14][12][13]

Timeline

  • 1343 – Tradurre “to move from one place to another” is in the Pisan statutes.[2]
  • 1354 – Passavanti uses it for passing something on.[4][14]
  • Before 1484 – Pulci uses tradotto for “translated”.[4]
  • Before 1557 – Traduzione is recorded.[4]
  • Before 1565 – Varchi uses tradurre and traduttore for translating.[4]
  • 1703 – Intraducibile “untranslatable” is recorded.[5]
  • 1839–1841 – The bureaucratic sense “to convey” is recorded.[4]
  • 1918 – Tradotta “troop train” appears.[4][5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To translate: to put a text, a speech or a word into another language; also used absolutely, “to work as a translator”: Sta traducendo un romanzo dal portoghese.[14][12][6]
  2. (colloquial) To explain in simpler words what someone has said: Me lo traduci in parole povere?[14][12][17]
  3. To express or realize in another form, tradurre in atto, in pratica: to put into effect, tradurre in cifre: to work out in figures.[14][12][13]
  4. To express a feeling or a state of mind in words.[14][16]
  5. (bureaucratic) To convey someone, especially a prisoner, from one place to another: L'arrestato è stato tradotto in questura.[14][6][13]
  6. (computing) To convert data or instructions from one language or form into another.[13]
  7. (literary) To transmit, hand down.[14][16][13]
  8. (intransitive pronominal) Tradursi in: to result in, become.[6][16]

Word family

  • traduzione
  • traduttore
  • tradotto
  • tradotta
  • traducibile
  • intraducibile
  • ritradurre
  • traduttivo

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  10. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3851
  12. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  13. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  15. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  16. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli