transcribe

If someone asks you to transcribe something, they want you to listen to it and write down what was said, word for word. Speeches, interviews, and trials are often transcribed for records.

From the Latin transcribere, which means “to copy, write over, or transfer,” the verb transcribe means just that: to write out a copy. You might want to transcribe a recording of an interview onto paper, or maybe you need to transcribe all the notes you collected from an important meeting. If you can remember that trans means “over” and that a scribe is a writer, you shouldn’t forget this word. Fun fact: to transcribe poorly is to transcribble.