transcription

American  

[tran-skrip-shuhn] / trænˈskrɪp ʃən /

noun

• transcriptions
  plural

1. the act or process of transcribing.

2. something transcribed.

3. a transcript; copy.

4. Music.

   1. the arrangement of a composition for a medium other than that for which it was originally written.

   2. a composition so arranged.

5. Radio and Television. a recording made especially for broadcasting.

6. Genetics. the process by which genetic information on a strand of DNA is used to synthesize a strand of complementary RNA.

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transcription British  

/ trænˈskrɪpʃən /

noun

1. the act or an instance of transcribing or the state of being transcribed

2. something transcribed

3. a representation in writing of the actual pronunciation of a speech sound, word, or piece of continuous text, using not a conventional orthography but a symbol or set of symbols specially designated as standing for corresponding phonetic values

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transcription Scientific  

/ trăn-skrĭp′shən /

1. The process in a cell by which genetic material is copied from a strand of DNA to a complementary strand of RNA (called messenger RNA). In eukaryotes, transcription takes place in the nucleus before messenger RNA is transported to the ribosomes for protein synthesis.

2. Compare translation

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• mistranscription
  noun
• nontranscription
  noun
• pretranscription
  noun
• retranscription
  noun
• transscriptionist
  noun
• nontranscriptive
  adjective
• transcriptional
  adjective
• transcriptive
  adjective
• transcriptionally
  adverb
• transcriptively
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• transcriptions
  plural

Etymology

Origin of transcription

First recorded in 1590–1600, transcription is from the Latin word trānscrīptiōn- (stem of trānscrīptiō ). See transcript, -ion

Explanation

A transcription is the document made by copying down in writing something that you listen to, like audio tapes, an interview, or comments made during a meeting. If you watch TV crime dramas, you’ve probably seen someone take a transcription while cops interview a suspect — that person is writing down all the things that are said. Transcription can also refer to the process of transcribing. If you’re a musician, you probably know that transcription can also describe adapting a piece of music for different instruments, like a cello transcription of a Beatles song.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

transcription transcriptions

The National Court Reporters Association says AI-assisted transcription remains prone to errors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026

That has created an opening for speech-to-text technology and AI-powered transcription services.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026

To identify factors that limit CAR T-cell performance, the researchers conducted a large-scale analysis of roughly 400 transcription factors, proteins that control which genes are switched on or off inside cells.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 2, 2026

A.I. transcription has gotten extremely good in the past few years and has taken a notable step forward over the past several months.

From Slate ● May 24, 2026

But transcription solved only half the problem of protein synthesis.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

In general, laws don’t distinguish between recordings and transcriptions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

A congressional panel investigating late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has released transcriptions of interviews with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Ted Waitt, the billionaire co-founder of Gateway computers.

From BBC ● May 14, 2026

This week, while releasing new AI models for internal uses, such as transcriptions, he described them External link to the Financial Times as “mid-class” and not in competition with the best frontier models.

From Barron's ● Apr. 4, 2026

“These similarities are further reflected in the side-by-side transcriptions of the musical scores for the Udio file and the original recording.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2025

For a considerable period in Latin transcriptions there were no gaps between words either, if you can credit such madness.

From "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Author

Related Words

• breeding
• copy
• facsimile
• imitation
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• propagation
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