English Reference

Word

translator

Phoneticstrans·la·tor

US/tɹænˈsɫeɪtɝ/

UK/tɹænslˈeɪtɐ/

Definitions

02software or device

B1 · Computing

n. a computer program or a small electronic device that changes words into another language.

n. an application or hardware device that performs automated machine translation between languages.

“I used an online translator to read the menu in French.”

“Modern neural machine translators have significantly improved the accuracy of technical documentation across multiple language pairs.”

Synonyms

machine translator

03programming tool

C1 · Computing

n. a program that changes computer code from one programming language into another.

n. a computer program that converts code from one programming language into another, such as a compiler or assembler.

“The software uses a translator to turn the high-level code into machine instructions.”

“The development team optimized the source-to-source translator to ensure the legacy code remained compatible with the new architecture.”

Technical

04signal repeater

C2

n. a device that receives a television or radio signal and sends it out again to reach a further distance.

n. a low-power broadcast station that receives a signal from a primary station and retransmits it on a different frequency.

“The small town relies on a local translator to receive the city's news channel.”

“The mountainous terrain necessitated the installation of several FM translators to provide consistent coverage to the remote valley communities.”

American English · Technical

Synonyms

Etymology

Directly from Latin trānslātor and French translator, and also from Middle English translatour, from Old French translatour, translateur, etc., from Latin trānslātor, from trānslātus (“carried across”) + -or (“-er: forming agent nouns”), from trānsferō (“carry across”), from trans (“across”) + ferō (“bear, carry”), q.v. Equivalent to translate + -or.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Domains

BotanyComputingProgramming

This entry

Level
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Frequent
Updated

Scan code

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English Reference