Other forms: interpreters
An interpreter turns speech from one language into another while people are still talking. The person murmuring into a headset behind a president, the one standing beside a doctor so a patient can describe the pain, the sign language interpreter at the side of a stage.
The distinction that catches everyone: an interpreter works with speech, live; a translator works with text, at a desk. Interpreters work either consecutively, waiting for the speaker to pause, or simultaneously, running a few seconds behind them. The word reaches beyond language as well — an interpreter of the law, an interpreter of dreams, a pianist called a fine interpreter of Chopin, all of them people who take something dense and make its meaning plain. In computing an interpreter is a program that reads code line by line and runs it as it goes, instead of compiling the whole thing first.
1nouninterpreterA person who says aloud in one language what someone has just said in another.
“The court could not begin until an interpreter arrived from Manchester.”
2nounexplainsA person who explains the meaning of something difficult, or performs a work in their own way.
“He was the finest interpreter of Chopin of his generation.”
3nounprogramA program that reads code line by line and runs it as it reads.
“The interpreter reports the error on the line where it happens.”
interpreter is a language professional.
Latin interpres was a go-between, the figure standing between two parties, and it produced interpretātor, the one who explains or translates. Old French shaped it into interpreteur and Middle English took it as interpretour. It pushed out the old native English word for the job, wealhstod, which disappeared completely.
Latin
interpretātōr
Old French
interpreteur
Middle English
interpreter
English, today
interpreter
Built from
From Middle English interpreter, interpretour, etc., from Old French interpreteur, interpreteeur, etc., from Latin interpretātōr, from classical Latin interpretātus (“explained, translated”) + -or (“-er: forming agent nouns”), from interpretor (“to explain, to translate”), from interpres (“go-between, translator”) + -ārī (“to be ~ed”), q.v. In reference to divine emissaries, a calque of Mercury's Latin epithet interpres divum (“go-between of the gods”). In reference to the rhetorical device, a calque of Latin interpretatio. Equivalent to interpret + er. Displaced native wealhstod.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA