Word.ws English Dictionary

overtranslation

overtranslation noun: the act of overtranslating.

Noun

overtranslation (countable and uncountable, plural overtranslations)

  1. The act of overtranslating.
    • Mistaking a servitude for an option can lead to overtranslation.1995, Jean-Paul Vinay, Jean Darbelnet, Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 16
    • One result of overtranslation is to render this development incoherent, trivial, or even imperceptible, since the development is already tacitly built into the translation from the beginning.2000, Hans Georg Gadamer, Lawrence Kennedy Schmidt, Language and Linguisticality in Gadamer's Hermeneutics, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 73

Examples of overtranslation in a sentence

  • The aim of this article is to illustrate the commonest forms of overtranslation through representative examples drawn from a variety of sources and source languages.2001, Sin-wai Chan, David E. Pollard, An Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese-English, English-Chinese, Chinese University Press, →ISBN...
  • If these Chinese equivalents are chosen, such an unintended cohesive link would lead to what Qian Hu terms ‘overtranslation’.2022, Jeremy Munday, Sara Ramos Pinto, Jacob Blakesley, Inroducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications, Routledge, →ISBN, page...

Forms of overtranslation

pluralovertranslations

Origin of overtranslation

From over- + translation.

Questions about overtranslation

What does overtranslation mean?
Overtranslation means the act of overtranslating.
How do you use overtranslation in a sentence?
The aim of this article is to illustrate the commonest forms of overtranslation through representative examples drawn from a variety of sources and source languages.
What part of speech is overtranslation?
Overtranslation is a noun.
What is the plural of overtranslation?
The plural of overtranslation is overtranslations.

Words near overtranslation in the dictionary

  1. overtransfusions
  2. overtranslate
  3. overtranslated
  4. overtranslates
  5. overtranslating
  6. overtranslation
  7. overtranslations
  8. overtransmission
  9. overtransmit
  10. overtransmitted
  11. overtrap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overtranslation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “overtranslation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overtranslation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.