Word.ws English Dictionary

translatese

translatese noun: awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, for example due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.

Noun

translatese (uncountable)

  1. Awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, for example due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.

Synonyms of translatese

Origin of translatese

From translate + -ese.

Questions about translatese

What does translatese mean?
Translatese means awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, for example due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.
What part of speech is translatese?
Translatese is a noun.

Words near translatese in the dictionary

  1. translatees
  2. Translategate
  3. translater
  4. translaters
  5. translates
  6. translatese
  7. translatest
  8. translateth
  9. translating
  10. translating dictionaries
  11. translating dictionary

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: translatese (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-translatese.ogg.

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