subtitle

English

Etymology

From sub- +‎ title.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsʌbtaɪtəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

Examples (authorship)
Twelfth Night, or What You Will Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

subtitle (plural subtitles)

1. (authorship) A heading below or after a title.
2. (cinematography, television) Textual versions of the dialogue in films (and similar media such as television or video games), usually displayed at the bottom of the screen.

   Coordinate term: intertitle

   • 1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 9:

     Careful viewers have long observed that in the movies, one can not only watch but read cigarettes like subtitles — translating the action on the screen into another language which the camera registers but rarely foregrounds, a part of the thickness of the medium which is almost never brought into focus. […] The cigarette in the scene serves as a subtext, a mute caption or subtitle, sometimes accompanying, sometimes contradicting or diverting the explicit premise of the action or the open meaning of signs.

Usage notes

• In film and video, subtitles usually translate foreign-language dialogue, while captions transcribe or describe all significant dialogue and sound for viewers who cannot hear it.

Derived terms

• subtitled, subtitling

Related terms

• surtitle, surtitles, surtitled, surtitling

Translations

heading below a title

Arabic: عُنْوَان فَرْعِيّ m (ʕunwān farʕiyy) (plural: عَنَاوِين فَرْعِيَّة m pl (ʕanāwīn farʕiyya)) Bulgarian: подзаглавие n (podzaglavie) Catalan: subtítol (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 副標題／副标题 (zh) (fù biāotí) Czech: podtitul (cs) m Danish: undertekst c Esperanto: subteksto Estonian: alapealkiri Finnish: alaotsikko (fi) French: sous-titre (fr) m Galician: subtítulo m Georgian: ქვესათაური (kvesatauri) German: Untertitel (de) m Greek: υπότιτλος (el) m (ypótitlos) Hebrew: כּוֹתֶרֶת מִשְׁנֶה f Hungarian: alcím (hu) Icelandic: undirtitill m, undirfyrirsögn f, aukafyrirsögn f Indonesian: judul bawah (id) Irish: fotheideal m Italian: sottotitolo (it) m Macedonian: поднаслов m (podnaslov) Malay: subtajuk Maori: kupu hauraro Norwegian: Bokmål: undertittel m Nynorsk: undertittel m Polish: podtytuł (pl) m Portuguese: subtítulo (pt) m Russian: подзаголо́вок (ru) (podzagolóvok) Scottish Gaelic: fo-thiotal m Spanish: subtítulo (es) m, título seccional m Swedish: undertitel (sv) c Tamil: துணை தலைப்ப (tuṇai talaippa) Ukrainian: підзаголо́вок m (pidzaholóvok) Walloon: sortite (wa) m, dizo-tite (wa) m Welsh: isteitl m

textual versions of the dialog in films

Afrikaans: onderskrifte pl, onderskrift sg Arabic: تَرْجَمَة (ar) f (tarjama)سَتْرَجَة f (satraja) Hijazi Arabic: تَرْجَمة f (tarjama) Armenian: ենթագիր (hy) (entʻagir) Azerbaijani: altyazı Basque: azpititulu sg Belarusian: субці́тры m pl (subcítry), субты́тры m pl (subtýtry) Bulgarian: субти́три (bg) m pl (subtítri), надписи (bg) m pl (nadpisi) Catalan: subtítol (ca) m, subtítols (ca) m pl Chinese: Cantonese: 字幕 (zi6 mok6) Mandarin: 字幕 (zh) (zìmù) Czech: titulky m pl Danish: undertekst c Dutch: ondertiteling (nl) Esperanto: subtitulo, subtituloj pl Estonian: subtiiter Finnish: tekstitys (fi) French: sous-titre (fr) m Galician: subtítulo m, lexenda f Georgian: სუბტიტრი (subṭiṭri) German: Untertitel (de) m Greek: υπότιτλος (el) m (ypótitlos), υπότιτλοι (el) m pl (ypótitloi) Hebrew: כְּתוּבִית f Hindi: उपशीर्षक (hi) (upśīrṣak) Hungarian: felirat (hu) Icelandic: texti (is) m, kvikmyndatexti m Indonesian: teks (id), subjudul, subtitel, takarir (id) Irish: fotheideal m Italian: sottotitolo (it) m Japanese: 字幕 (ja) (じまく, jimaku) Kazakh: субтитр (subtitr) Korean: 자막(字幕) (ko) (jamak) Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: binnivîs (ku) Latvian: subtītrs m, subtītri m pl Macedonian: титл m (titl), титлови m pl (titlovi), превод m (prevod), толкување n (tolkuvanje) Malay: sari kata Maori: kupu hauraro Norwegian: Bokmål: undertekst m or f Nynorsk: undertekst m or f Polish: napisy (pl) m pl Portuguese: legenda (pt) f Romanian: subtitlu (ro) Russian: субти́тр (ru) m (subtítr), (plural: субти́тры pl (subtítry)) Scottish Gaelic: fo-thiotal m Serbo-Croatian: titlove Spanish: subtítulo (es) m, subtítulos (es) m pl Swahili: mada ndogo Swedish: textremsa c, undertext (sv) c Tibetan: སྐད་ཆ་སྒྱུར་ཡིག (skad cha sgyur yig) Turkish: altyazı (tr) Ukrainian: субти́три pl (subtýtry) Vietnamese: phụ đề (vi) Walloon: sortite (wa) m Welsh: isteitl m Yiddish: אונטערטיטלען n (untertitlen)

Verb

subtitle (third-person singular simple present subtitles, present participle subtitling, simple past and past participle subtitled)

1. To create subtitles for the dialogue in a film.

Translations

to create subtitles

Arabic: تَرْجَمَ (tarjama) Hijazi Arabic: تَرْجَم (tarjam) Catalan: subtitular (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Cornish: istitla Czech: otitulkovat Finnish: tekstittää (fi) French: sous-titrer (fr) Galician: lexendar, subtitular (gl) German: untertiteln (de) Greek: υποτιτλίζω (el) (ypotitlízo) Icelandic: texta Irish: fotheidealaigh Italian: sottotitolare (it) Macedonian: титлува (titluva), толкува (tolkuva) Portuguese: legendar (pt) Spanish: subtitular (es) Swedish: texta (sv) Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can Welsh: isteitlo

Further reading

• subtitles on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• subtitle (titling) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• blue tits, bluetits, builtest