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interpret

/ɪnˈtɜːrprɪt/·verb

to decide and explain what something means — signs, data, words, or events
Fig. 1 — The prints stop meaning anything about forty paces in — to me.
01Definition

To interpret is to stand between a thing and its meaning and supply the connection. The Latin interpres was exactly that: the agent between two parties, the explainer, the translator. Marks on snow, columns on a chart, clauses in a law — none of them announce what they mean; someone must read the evidence and say what it implies, and honest readers can infer differently from the same marks, which is why interpretations argue with each other in a way that measurements do not.

02In use
  • iTwo historians can interpret the same letters in opposite ways.
  • iiThe chart is easy to read but surprisingly hard to interpret.
  • iiiA court interpreter must interpret tone and hesitation as faithfully as words.
03Collocations
  • interpret the results
  • interpret data
  • widely interpreted as
  • open to interpretation
  • interpret a law

Family interpretation (noun) · interpreter (noun) · interpretive (adjective)

04Relations

=infer, decode, construe, explain, translate

≠misread, misunderstand

06TOEFL & IELTS

Stress the second syllable — in-TER-prit, /ɪnˈtɜːrprɪt/ — never IN-terpret, and keep the final vowel short (not -pret as in 'regret'). In IELTS Academic Task 1 the difference between describing and interpreting data is the difference between Band 6 and Band 7: 'sales rose' describes; 'the rise suggests seasonal demand' interprets. Professionally, interpreters handle speech and translators handle text — the exams respect the distinction.

07Asked
What does it mean to interpret data or results?
To move from what the numbers are to what they mean. Analysis establishes that sales fell 12% in March; interpretation argues why — weather, price rises, a rival's launch — and what follows from it. It is the step where expertise and bias both enter, which is why two economists can accept identical figures and interpret them into opposite forecasts. The tracker in the scene above is doing the same work — reading an animal out of marks the rest of us walk past.
What is the difference between interpreting and translating?
Medium is the whole difference: interpreters work with speech, live and under time pressure — courtrooms, conferences, hospital visits — while translators work with written text and can revise. The skills differ enough that they are separate professions with separate training. Loosely, 'translate' covers both in everyday talk, but on exams and in job titles the line is real.
What exactly does an interpreter do?
Converts spoken language in real time while keeping meaning, register and intent — including the parts that are not words. A court interpreter who flattens a witness's hesitation into fluent certainty has changed the evidence. Simultaneous interpreters speak while still listening, a few seconds behind the speaker; consecutive interpreters wait for pauses and reconstruct whole passages from notes.
How do you pronounce interpret?
in-TER-prit, /ɪnˈtɜːrprɪt/, with the stress on the second syllable and a reduced final vowel. Learners' two habitual errors are front-stressing it (IN-terpret) and rhyming the ending with 'regret'. The noun moves the stress later: interpretation is in-ter-pri-TAY-shun. British and American differ only in the r-colouring of the stressed vowel.
What does 'open to interpretation' mean?
That the thing itself does not settle its own meaning — reasonable people, reading carefully, can land on different accounts. An ambiguous law, an unexplained ending, a diplomat's carefully vague sentence are all open to interpretation. The phrase is neutral to slightly wary: it warns that whatever meaning you take, you supplied part of it.
What is the noun form of interpret — interpretation or interpreting?
Both exist, split by sense. Interpretation is a particular reading of something: a new interpretation of the fossil record, the court's interpretation of the clause. Interpreting is the professional activity of converting speech between languages: she studied conference interpreting. Mixing them ('a bold interpreting of the data') is a common learner slip.