rendition means an interpretation or performance of an artwork, especially a musical score or musical work. It carries an Arena rating of 1514, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, rendition ranks #265 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,955 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #3,968 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #6,336 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
rendition is pronounced /ɹɛnˈdɪʃ(ə)n/.
Why “rendition” is a great word
A particular interpretation, performance, or translation of a work, especially a musical or artistic one. From obsolete French 'rendition', an alteration (after 'rendre', meaning "to render") of 'reddition' (meaning "surrender, giving back"), ultimately from Latin 'reddere' ("to give back"), first attested in English circa 1600. Unlike "interpretation" (which broadly explains or understands meaning) or "translation" (which denotes a stricter linguistic conversion), a rendition is a specific, performed surrender of a work to a new medium or moment. It is the jazz singer bending a standard into something aching and new, the actor's voice finding frequencies in Shakespeare the scholar never heard, or the watercolorist capturing a particular light while abandoning exactitude—each a fleeting act of giving something back, altered forever by the hand that returns it.
Etymology
From obsolete French rendition, alteration (after rendre (“to render”)) of reddition (“reddition”). Many senses influenced by render.
noun
- An interpretation or performance of an artwork, especially a musical score or musical work.e.g.“Near-synonym: rendering”
- A given visual reproduction of something.
- Translation between languages, or between forms of a language; a translated text or work.
- Formal deliverance of a verdict.
- The handing-over of someone wanted for justice who has fled a given jurisdiction.
- The surrender (of a city, fortress etc.).
- The handing over of a person or thing.
verb
- To surrender or hand over (a person or thing); especially, for one jurisdiction to do so to another.e.g.“Records show that only about three hundred fugitive slaves were renditioned to the South between 1850 and secession a decade later.” — 2007, Thomas G. Mitchell, Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 60:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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