Rosetta Stone
Etymologically, "translation" is a "carrying across" or "bringing across." The Latin "translatio" derives from the perfect passive participle, "translatum," of "transferre" ("to transfer" — from "trans," "across" + "ferre," "to carry" or "to bring"). The modern Romance, Germanic and Slavic European languages have generally formed their own equivalent terms for this concept after the Latin model — after "transferre" or after the kindred "traducere" ("to bring across" or "to lead across").
Additionally, the Greek term for "translation," "metaphrasis" ("a speaking across"), has supplied English with "metaphrase" (a "literal translation," or "word-for-word" translation)—as contrasted with "paraphrase" ("a saying in other words," from the Greek "paraphrasis")."Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence," and "paraphrase", to "dynamic equivalence