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
• Slovak: titulok m
• 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