transcript
Pluraltranscripts
Pluraltranscripts
Formstranscripts, transcripting, transcripted
- 1A written version of something that was originally spoken aloud.
The committee requested a full transcript of the recorded hearing.
Reporters pored over the transcript of the senator's phone call.
Similartranscription, record, text
- 2An official certified record of a student's grades and all courses taken during their course of study.
The university won't release a transcript until all tuition is paid.
Graduate schools weigh your transcript heavily during admissions.
Similarrecord
Note
An institution's record rather than anyone's words. Unlike the word-for-word copy, it reproduces no original text. Its typical verbs show its bureaucratic life: schools issue and release transcripts, and students request and send them. Credits and degrees appear on it alongside courses and grades, and the certification is what makes it official rather than a mere summary.
- 3A written copy that reproduces the same words as an original text or composition.
Scholars compared the transcript against the original manuscript for errors.
Each transcript of the charter preserved the exact wording of the medieval deed.
Similarcopy, transcription, duplicate
Oppositeoriginal
Note
The core of the word is word-for-word copying. Latin transcriptum names the thing produced by transcribere, the verb English also took as transcribe. A transcript in this sense is judged by its fidelity, so scholars check it against the original for errors. That sets it apart from the record of spoken words, where there was never an original text, only speech.
- 4A molecule of RNA produced by the transcription of DNA.
Researchers measured the abundance of each transcript using sequencing.
A single gene can yield several different transcripts through alternative splicing.
Note
Geneticists count and compare these molecules. Each is copied by RNA polymerase from a DNA template and is the primary product before any splicing or capping. Because one gene can yield several transcripts, the word names the product, not the gene. The usual verb is express: a transcript is expressed in one organ or many, and it is never written.
- 5A copy of any kind; an imitation of an original.
Critics dismissed the novel as a mere transcript of older works.
The portrait is a faithful transcript of the sitter's features.
Similarcopy, imitation, reproduction, replica, likeness
Oppositeoriginal
Note
Here the copy has left the page. Joseph Glanvill in 1676 calls Grecian learning "but a transcript of the Chaldean and Egyptian." The sense often carries a sting when it is paired with but or mere, marking something as derivative. It can also praise, as in a faithful transcript of a face. The adjective decides which way it leans.
Less common meaning
- 6To make a written copy of a text; to transcribe it.
The scribe was paid to transcript the entire court proceedings.
Each apprentice would transcript the master's correspondence into a fair copy.
Note
The verb English kept is transcribe. Used as a verb, transcript is obsolete and rare. It inflects regularly as transcripts, transcripting and transcripted, and it takes a direct object. In modern writing use transcribe. A verb transcript will read as a mistake unless you are deliberately echoing older prose.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Latin transcriptum, from transcribere (to transcribe or copy).