AND: Examples for the use of the word ‘translation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary: II. 2. a. trans. To turn from one language into another; ‘to change into another language retaining the sense’ (J.); to render; also, to express in other words, to paraphrase. (The chief current sense.)
a1300 Cursor M. 232 {Th}is ilk bok it es translate In to Inglis tong to rede. c1350 Will. Palerne 167 For he of frensche {th}is fayre tale ferst dede translate. c1385 CHAUCER L.G.W. 329 (Balade) Thow hast translatid the romauns of the rose. 1477 EARL RIVERS (Caxton) Dictes 2 It was translated out of latyn in to frenshe. 1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie I. xxxi. (Arb.) 75 Doctour Phaer one that..excellently well translated into English verse Heroicall certaine bookes of Virgils Æneidos. 1689-90 TEMPLE Ess. Poetry Wks. 1731 I. 241 The first Change of Poetry was made by translating it into Prose. 1693 DRYDEN Disc. Orig. & Progr. Satire Ess. (ed. Ker) II. 92 ‘Tis only for a poet to translate a poem. 1776 JOHNSON 11 Apr., in Boswell, Poetry..cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages. 1850 WHIPPLE Ess. & Rev. (ed. 3) I. 300 If the phrase, realizing the ideal, were translated into the phrase, actualizing the real, much ambiguity might be avoided. 1874 GREEN Short Hist. vii. §I. 342 Retiring to Hamburg Tyndale translated the Gospels and Epistles.
b. absol. To practise translation; to make a version from one language or form of words into another; also intr. for pass., of a language, speech, or writing: To bear or admit of translation.
c1440 Pallad. on Husb. I. 735 Yet as myn auctor spak so wold I speke Sith I translate, and looth am from hym breke. 1576 FLEMING Panopl. Epist. 253 If you translate out of the Latine speach, into the Greeke. 1690 LOCKE Hum. Und. III. iv. §9 This is to translate, and not to define, when we change two words of the same signification one for another. 1731 FIELDING Author’s Farce II. v, The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops as well as the languages. 1812 SOUTHEY Omniana II. 30 Claudian throughout would translate better than any of the ancients. 1827 {emem} Lett. (1856) IV. 64 The Welsh, I suspect, is not a language which translates well. 1831 MACAULAY Ess., Johnson (1887) 194 Sometimes Johnson translated aloud.