Definition and meaning of translate

TranslateTrans*late" (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Translated; p. pr. & vb. n. Translating.] [f. translatus, used as p. p. of transferre to transfer, but from a different root. See Trans-, and Tolerate, and cf. Translation.]
1. To bear, carry, or remove, from one place to another; to transfer; as, to translate a tree. [Archaic] Dryden.

In the chapel of St. Catharine of Sienna, they show her head- the rest of her body being translated to Rome. Evelyn.

2. To change to another condition, position, place, or office; to transfer; hence, to remove as by death.

3. To remove to heaven without a natural death.

By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translatedhim. Heb. xi. 5.

4. (Eccl.) To remove, as a bishop, from one see to another. “Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, when the king would have translated him from that poor bishopric to a better, . . . refused.” Camden.

5. To render into another language; to express the sense of in the words of another language; to interpret; hence, to explain or recapitulate in other words.

Translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. Macaulay.

6. To change into another form; to transform.

Happy is your grace,
That can translatethe stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style. Shak.

7. (Med.) To cause to remove from one part of the body to another; as, to translate a disease.

8. To cause to lose senses or recollection; to entrance. [Obs.] J. Fletcher.

TranslateTrans*late, v. i. To make a translation; to be engaged in translation.