What does "translationese" mean?

Language exhibiting awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.

What is a synonym for "translationese"?

Common synonyms include: translatese, translatese, translatorese.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Language exhibiting awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax. uncountable
"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 wordplay of these texts was simply not possible, though I have striven to communicate some of their poetic qualities. In any event, at every turn I have studiously avoided translationese, while still trying to convey accurately what a given author actually wrote and meant. I hope I have succeeded, and also captured something of each writer's personality and charm."

"Being an amateur translator, Tom often makes the mistake of writing translationese."

From translation + -ese.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.