The term interpret was initially utilized in the late fourteenth-century Wycliffite Bible, spelled as interprete, signifying “explain the meaning of” or “translate”, similar to its current usage. It originates from the Old French verb interpreter, borrowed in the thirteenth century from the Latin present passive infinitive interpretari, which could also connote “decide” and “regard”. Etymologically, the term meant “agent between”, as it derives from the preposition inter, meaning “between”, and the root pres, a less familiar term for “agent”. Inter comes from Proto-Indo-European enter, signifying either “between” or “among”; pres is believed to be connected to the word for price, pretium, suggesting its origin from a Proto-Indo-European root resembling per and meaning “sell”.
