interpreter

American  

[in-tur-pri-ter] / ɪnˈtɜr prɪ tər /

noun

1. a person who interprets.

2. a person who provides an oral translation between speakers who speak different languages.

3. Computers.

   1. hardware or software that transforms one statement at a time of a program written in a high-level language into a sequence of machine actions and executes the statement immediately before going on to transform the next statement.

   2. an electromechanical device that reads the patterns of holes in punched cards and prints the same data on the cards, so that they can be read more conveniently by people.

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interpreter British  

/ ɪnˈtɜːprɪtə /

noun

1. a person who translates orally from one language into another

2. a person who interprets the work of others

3. computing

   1. a program that translates a second program to machine code one statement at a time and causes the execution of the resulting code as soon as the translation is completed

   2. a machine that interprets the holes in a punched card and prints the corresponding characters on that card

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• interpretership
  noun
• interpretress
  noun

Etymology

Origin of interpreter

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English interpretour, from Anglo-French; equivalent to interpret + -er ²

Explanation

An interpreter is someone who translates something to make it understandable, usually spoken language. When your class takes a trip to Russia, you’ll likely have an interpreter to translate Russian to English so you can understand what people are saying to you. Need to talk to someone who doesn't speak your language? You'll need an interpreter. Say you're interviewing a Bulgarian diplomat, but you don't speak Bulgarian. The interpreter would listen to a few sentences in Bulgarian and then repeat them in English, and then listen to your English response and repeat that in Bulgarian. We also use interpreter for artists who represent ideas or places in their work. If you paint industrial cityscapes, you're an interpreter of urban life.

Example Sentences

Joshua Amissah got up from his seat in the witness box and stepped away from the interpreter by his side.

From BBC • Jun. 8, 2026

Before winning office, she was a Chinese interpreter and then an aide for nearly 15 years to several different Democratic politicians from the Bay Area, including then-San Francisco Dist.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026

It has shortened interpreter hours, powered down escalators and ignored loose cladding on its 75-year-old headquarters in New York.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 30, 2026

Tusk, speaking through an interpreter, said the UK and Poland's "shared values", including rule of law and human rights, provided the "foundation of the treaty".

From BBC • May 27, 2026

Through an interpreter, the judge explained that the hearing was about whether he wished to fight the government’s plan to deport him to Mexico as soon as his sentence was finished.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

Related Words

• artist
• commentator
• editor
• exponent
• linguist
• philosopher
• scholar
• writer