transliterate

verb

trans·​lit·​er·​ate tran(t)s-ˈli-tə-ˌrāt How to pronounce transliterate (audio)
tranz-
transliterated; transliterating

transitive verb

: to represent or spell in the characters of another alphabet
transliteration noun

Examples of transliterate in a Sentence

The Russian letter Я is usually transliterated in English as ya or ia.
Recent Examples on the Web The city has asked translators to furnish names that are transliterated, a process that more closely approximates English pronunciations. Amy Qin, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2024 The family and its spokespeople have transliterated their names as both Shem and Schem but used the former spelling on place cards at the news conference Tuesday. Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 17 Oct. 2023 Much of the exhilaration was inspired by the seeming miracles that a new kind of AI—deep learning—was achieving in playing games, recognizing faces, and transliterating voices. IEEE Spectrum, 29 June 2020 Many attempts have been made to transliterate Chinese in the Latin alphabet. Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2022 The government has also vowed to transliterate candidates’ names in 2021 – a strategy not required by law but used in nearby Boston to make ballots less confusing for Chinese speakers. Lindsey McGinnis, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 Jan. 2021 The confusion stems from the fact that his native Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and there is no standardized way of transliterating names into the Latin alphabet. Hanna Kozlowska, Quartz, 25 Sep. 2019 But technically, the first word of the name is the Korean idiom that transliterates as sohn-mat. Julia Kramer, Bon Appétit, 9 July 2019 The name of Samarn Poonan, the Thai Navy SEAL who died in the cave rescue efforts, was transliterated as Saman Kunan, in an earlier photo caption with this article. Wilawan Watcharasakwet and Phred Dvorak, WSJ, 6 July 2018

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'transliterate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

trans- + Latin littera letter

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of transliterate was in 1835

Dictionary Entries Near transliterate

Cite this Entry

“Transliterate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transliterate. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

transliterate

verb
trans·​lit·​er·​ate tran(t)s-ˈlit-ə-ˌrāt How to pronounce transliterate (audio)
tranz-
transliterated; transliterating
: to represent or spell in the characters of another alphabet
transliteration noun

More from Merriam-Webster on transliterate

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