English

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Etymology

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From sub- +‎ title.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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Examples (authorship)

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

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  • 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

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Translations

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Verb

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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

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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