Word.ws English Dictionary

translationese

translationese noun: language exhibiting awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.

Noun

translationese (uncountable)

  1. Language exhibiting awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.
    • Note on the Sources and Translations / Some of the works translated here are poetic in form. Hesiod, the hymnists, Lucretius, Vergil, and Horace, for example, all wrote in meter. I have not attempted to render these works metrically in English, and to capture all the irony, double-entendres, and...2021, M.D. Usher, transl., edited by M.D. Usher, How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series), Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page xiii

Synonyms of translationese

Origin of translationese

From translation + -ese.

Questions about translationese

What does translationese mean?
Translationese means language exhibiting awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.
What part of speech is translationese?
Translationese is a noun.

Words near translationese in the dictionary

  1. translational energy
  2. translational science
  3. translationality
  4. translationally
  5. translationary
  6. translationese
  7. translationless
  8. translations
  9. translatioun
  10. translatiouns
  11. translatitious

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: translationese (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-translationese.ogg.

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