Mistranslated

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Rendered from one language to another with errors that change the original meaning
2. Converted text or speech into another language inaccurately, leading to misunderstandings
3. Expressed in a different language with mistakes causing a distortion of the intended message

Etymology: "Mistranslated" is the past tense and past participle of "mistranslate", so the story belongs to the verb itself. Its first half, "mis-", goes back to Old English and is the same prefix that appears in "misjudge" and "misspell", meaning wrongly or badly. Its second half, "translate", came into English from Latin "translatus", meaning "carried across", the same idea that gives us a word for moving something from one place to another. Put together, the two parts describe carrying a meaning across to another language and getting it wrong along the way. The combination is straightforward: "mis-" attached to an existing verb, with no special history of its own.

Synonyms: misinterpreted, incorrectly translated, misrendered, mistakenly translated, misquoted

Antonyms: accurately translated, correctly interpreted, faithfully rendered, properly translated, exactly quoted