Etymologically

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word traduzir

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1500s More words from the 16th century
Borrowed from
Latin traduco
Ultimate origin
Latin dūcō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin dūcō
Catalan dur
Romanian duce
Spanish ducir
Latin trādūcō
English traduce
French traduire
Romanian traduce
Italian tradurre
Portuguese traduzir
Spanish traducir
From the same root
Latin abdūcō ← dūcō
Latin addūcō ← dūcō
Latin circumdūcō ← dūcō
Latin condūcō ← dūcō
Latin dēdūcō ← dūcō
Latin dīdūcō ← dūcō
Latin ductiō ← dūcō
Latin ducto ← dūcō
Latin ductor ← dūcō
Latin ductus ← dūcō
Latin dux ← dūcō
Latin ēdūcō ← dūcō
Latin indūcō ← dūcō
Latin intrōdūcō ← dūcō
Latin obdūcō ← dūcō
Latin perduco ← dūcō
Latin praeduco ← dūcō
Latin prōdūcō ← dūcō
Latin redūcō ← dūcō
Latin sēdūcō ← dūcō
Latin subdūcō ← dūcō
Romanian reduce ← dūcō
Latin trāductiō ← trādūcō
Latin trādux ← trādūcō
Romanian traducere ← trādūcō

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /tɾa.duˈzi(ʁ)/, [tɾa.duˈzi(h)][1]
  • São-Paulo: /tɾa.duˈzi(ɾ)/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /tɾa.duˈzi(ʁ)/, [tɾa.duˈzi(χ)][1]
  • Caipira: /tɾa.duˈzi(ɻ)/[1]

Forms

traduzir (first-person singular present traduzo, first-person singular preterite traduzi, past participle traduzido)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin trādūcō (“to lead across, transfer; to translate”).[2][3][1] Nascentes calls it semi-learned.[4] Houaiss records an odd 14th-century form Old Galician-Portuguese atrasaduzer, and the present form from 1589;[2][3] Cunha dates the word to the 16th century.[2][3]

The Latin verb is formed trāns- (“across”) + dūcō (“to lead”), also written transdūcō.[5][1] Its popular outcome is Old Galician-Portuguese trocir, recorded with the senses “to pass” and “to swallow down”, beside Old Spanish trocir “to pass by”.[6][7] Spanish traducir, Catalan traduir, French traduire and Italian tradurre are learned like the Portuguese word.[6][8] The DHLF dates the French verb, a borrowing from Latin, to 1480.[9]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) defines the verb as rendering the words of one language in another with the same meaning, and adds the figurative “to transfer, transform”.[10] Vieira (1871–1874) adds “to explain, interpret” and “to make manifest”.[11] The reflexive traduzir-se “to show itself, to result in” and the sense “to symbolize” are modern.[2][12] In computing the verb also means to convert a program from one language to another.[13]

Timeline

  • 14th century – Houaiss records a form atrasaduzer.[2]
  • 16th century – Cunha's first date for traduzir.[3]
  • 1589 – Houaiss's first record of traduzir.[2]
  • 1656 – a private letter has the form tradozise.[14]
  • 1734 – Feijó lists the spelling traduzir.[15]
  • 1789 – Morais gives the senses “translate” and “transfer, transform”.[10]
  • 1813 – first record of tradutor.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (transitive) To translate from one language into another: Traduziu o romance do russo para o inglês.[2][16][1]
  2. (intransitive) To work as a translator (tradutor).[2][17]
  3. To interpret a gesture or an attitude in a certain way.[2][12]
  4. To express, reveal, show;[2][16][1] (reflexive) to show itself, to result in: O cansaço traduzia-se na voz dele.[2][16][1]
  5. To symbolize, to stand for.[2][12]
  6. To make understandable; to explain in other words.[2][18]
  7. (computing) To convert from one programming language to another.[13]

Word family

  • traduzível

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. traduzir
  3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. traduzir
  4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. traduzir
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8831
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
  8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 501
  9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. traduire
  10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 473
  11. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 784
  12. ^ a b c Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. traduzir
  13. ^ a b Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. traduzir
  14. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. traduzir
  15. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. traduzir
  16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. traduzir
  17. ^ Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. traduzir
  18. ^ Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. traduzir

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Traduzir.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/traduzir. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·