Transliterate

//tɹænzˈlɪtəɹeɪt// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To represent letters or words in the characters of another writing system. transitive

    "In German, the ß character is called eszett. It’s used in “Straße,” the word for street, and in the expletive “Scheiße.” It’s often transliterated as “ss,” and strangely enough, it’s never had an official uppercase counterpart."

  2. 2
    rewrite in a different script wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alphabetizecapitalizecharacterconstrueenglishinitial

Example

More examples

"He asked me to transliterate the Hebrew sentence."

Etymology

From Latin transliterātum, past participle of transliterō, from trans (“across”) + literō , from littera (“letter”).

Related phrases

back-transliteratewriting system

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