transliterate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
transliteratesimple
-
transliteratessimple
-
have transliteratedperfect
-
has transliteratedperfect
-
am transliteratingprogressive
-
are transliteratingprogressive
-
is transliteratingprogressive
-
have been transliteratingperfect progressive
-
has been transliteratingperfect progressive
Past
-
transliteratedsimple
-
had transliteratedperfect
-
was transliteratingprogressive
-
were transliteratingprogressive
-
had been transliteratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of transliterate
First recorded 1860–65; trans- + Latin lītter(a), litter(a) letter 1 + -ate 1
Explanation
To transliterate is to rewrite something in a different alphabet. When you transliterate the name Пётр from Russian into English, it's generally spelled Peter. Transliterate comes from two Latin roots, trans, or "across," and littera, "letter or character." It's related to translate, with an important distinction: when you translate something, you interpret its meaning and put that in a different language. When you transliterate, you're simply changing the alphabet in which a word is written, so that it can be read or pronounced in a different language.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Dodson decided to essentially transliterate the line, despite the grammatical awkwardness it introduces in English: “In the depths of the virgin-forest was born Macunaíma, hero of our people.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2023
The best an English translation can do is to transliterate the Greek letters—“Ototototoi”—or go with something like “Woe is me!” or “Alas!”
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 7, 2019
Maybe there was too much internal debate on how to best transliterate it.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 19, 2013
Though most of the world’s languages have no written form, people are beginning to transliterate their mother tongues into the alphabet of a national language.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2011
The 114 author is apparently unable to transliterate properly the Old English names.
From The Translations of Beowulf A Critical Bibliography by Tinker, Chauncey Brewster
The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his son Saad Alkabli, who transliterates his surname differently.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 16, 2021
Otherwise, though, from the opener “Bigger,” The Gift transliterates the leonine royal-family drama and “circle of life” worldview of The Lion King into the recent main leitmotif of Beyoncé’s own work.
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2019
Besides being bigger, ravens can be distinguished from crows by the croaking sound they make, which the Cornell Lab of Ornithology transliterates as “cr-r-ruck.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 23, 2016
They included “Edano_my_Angel,” “Edano_go_to_bed” and “Edano_nero,” which transliterates a Japanese word meaning “go to sleep.”
From BusinessWeek ● Mar. 16, 2011
The form Samrū, or Shamrū, transliterates the Hindustāni spelling.
From Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by Sleeman, William
Associated Press journalists saw some walls cracked or partially collapsed in the empty Aksu country village of Youkakeyamansu, a name transliterated in Mandarin from Uyghur.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 23, 2024
Each one has at its center a simulated label emblazoned with that phrase, but transliterated into Japanese.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 22, 2022
Possibly, with an added complication: Greek words must be transliterated from the Greek alphabet into the English alphabet.
From New York Times ● Nov. 18, 2021
Then again, that style was forged in private with no sense of an audience, as she transliterated, for example, R.E.M.’s cryptic mumbles into her own gender-flipped riddles.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2021
Mohan opens his book and starts reciting the transliterated words.
From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins
We transcribed every handwritten name on the lists into a database, transliterating them from Arabic to English.
From New York Times ● Jul. 16, 2022
“Simply transliterating Mitsuha and Taki’s star-crossed friendship into English, relocating it to the Pacific Northwest, and hoping for the best would be a disaster of its own,” David Ehrlich wrote on the IndieWire website.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 2, 2017
Almost certainly, a native Russian speaker wrote the original material, correctly transliterating the Russian “f” as “ph”.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2017
Arabic writing does not include most vowels, and he’s transliterating the language in his head.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2016
In transliterating the names of Chinese characters I have generally followed the spelling of Morrison rather than the Pekinese, which is now in vogue.
From A Record of Buddhistic kingdoms: being an account by the Chinese monk Fa-hsien of travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline by Faxian, ca. 337-422
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
