undertranslate

under- +‎ translate

undertranslate (third-person singular simple present undertranslates, present participle undertranslating, simple past and past participle undertranslated)

1. to translate insufficiently.
   • 1991, Peter Newmark, About Translation, Multilingual Matters (→ISBN), page 104:

     Secondly, there is a tendency to undertranslate, viz. to normalise by generalising, to understate, in all translation but particularly in literary translation.

   • 2017, Geraldine Brodie, Adapting Translation for the Stage, Taylor & Francis (→ISBN), page 45:

     Only Borell and Adam undertranslate this opener as "What brings you here, Adler?"

   • 2019, David R. Miller, Greek Pedagogy in Crisis: A Pedagogical Analysis and Assessment of New Testament Greek in Twenty-First-Century Theological Education, Wipf and Stock Publishers (→ISBN), page 185:

     I was told specifically that they were going to undertranslate differences between, say, present and aorist infinitives, because there was no agreement on how to handle the differences.