Thanksgiving Words That Don’t Translate Easily—and What They Reveal About the Complexity of Translation

By Tim ・ November 13, 2025

Translation is more complex than simply swapping one word for another. Words are more than descriptors—they reflect what makes a culture unique, expressing its experiences, ideas, attitudes, values, and more. This is why word-for-word translation often falls short of capturing the true meaning.

Holidays like Thanksgiving are a great example of cultural nuances in language and a reminder to give thanks for skilled translators.

What are Untranslatable Words?

At their most basic, untranslatable words and expressions belong to a particular language and don’t have a one-to-one equivalent in another language. It’s common for a translation to require a complete phrase, or even a paragraph, to capture the meaning of a single untranslatable word due to the cultural, emotional, and social meaning attached to it.

A number of factors can make it difficult to convey the full nuance or essence of a word or phrase in another language, including:

Cultural differences
Regional dialects
Idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
Words with multiple meanings
Technical terms
Deep emotions

Because of the complexity of language, skilled translators must not only have a firm grasp of vocabulary and grammar but also understand the culture, idioms, and terms needed to place a translation in the correct context. It is at this convergence of language and culture that AI translation tools struggle to produce adequate translations.

Thanksgiving Words That Are Tough to Translate

Thanksgiving presents a variety of translation challenges—offering everything from idioms and colloquialisms to technical culinary terms. In fact, the word “Thanksgiving” itself can present difficulty in translation.

Although harvest festivals exist around the world, Thanksgiving is uniquely tied to American history, culture, and traditions. Today, it is as much about food as it is a celebration of gratitude, togetherness, and community. For many Americans, it is also about family, giving back, and marking the official start of the holiday season.

Below are a few more Thanksgiving-related words that offer translation challenges:

Pilgrim: In the U.S., this term commonly refers to the specific historical group that attended the first Thanksgiving, especially during the holidays. In other languages, however, it is often used more generally to describe a person who travels to a sacred place for religious reasons.
Gobble: Blends sound, action, and cultural tradition in a single word—making it tricky to translate.
Stuffing: Not just a food, but a cultural symbol of Thanksgiving, stuffing is a dish cooked inside a turkey that doesn’t have an equivalent in many cultures. It’s also a word with multiple meanings. Dressing—roughly the same dish, cooked separately from the turkey—provides similar translation challenges.
Drumstick: Combines culinary jargon, cultural meaning, wordplay, and linguistic ambiguity—it could mean stick for playing the drums.
Turducken: Offers many translation challenges. The uniquely American dish—a turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken—doesn’t have an equivalent in most languages, and direct translation fails to capture its linguistic creativity and humor.
Giblets: The internal organs of a turkey are a culinary term (they’re often used to make gravy), culturally associated with Thanksgiving, and often used humorously at Thanksgiving. For example, Nothing says “Thanksgiving courage” like fishing the giblets out of the turkey without screaming.

Thanksgiving Phrases That Are Tough to Translate

It’s not just Thanksgiving-related singular words that are difficult to translate; a number of phrases also don’t easily convert into other languages.

Giving thanks: This combines a cultural ritual with emotion and action—it’s a combination of communal gratitude expressed during Thanksgiving, along with a feeling of thankfulness.
Turkey trot: No, this isn’t a description of turkeys running, but the popular tradition of running a race on Thanksgiving. It poses translation challenges like word play, words having multiple meanings, and cultural understanding.
Turkey Day: Another turkey-focused term that’s tough to translate. Turkey Day is a colloquial term used to describe Thanksgiving and implies traditions associated with the holiday—a literal translation might associate the cultural meaning.
Turkey coma: Here’s one more turkey-based translation twister—this one causes issues due to its cultural specificity (feeling tired after eating a large Thanksgiving dinner), its colloquial nature, and the difference between its literal and figurative meaning.
Friendsgiving: This portmanteau—a word made by blending two words—is hard to translate while keeping its lighthearted and playful tone. Another issue is that many cultures don’t have a similar holiday.
Black Friday: This term is tricky to translate because it doesn’t have an equivalent in many cultures. Further complicating translation is its idiomatic meaning—a direct translation makes it sound like a “dark Friday,” but it actually refers to stores moving “into the black” (turning a profit) due to sales and increased shopping demand. Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday all pose similar challenges.

What Untranslatable Words Reveal

The language of Thanksgiving shows that language is more than a tool for communication—it’s a reflection of connection, perspective, and the human experience. Translating words like turducken and phrases like turkey coma isn’t just about finding equivalents; it’s about solving a puzzle to accurately capture the full meaning of what’s being communicated—with all its nuance and cultural depth.

It also highlights the art of translation and the importance of highly qualified translators. When it comes to localization, AI translation tools lack the lived experience to evoke the emotion, meaning, and culture of holidays like Thanksgiving.

Translations ABC

Meaningful translation and high-value content require professional expertise. Whether you’re translating a technical manual or localizing a marketing campaign, Translations ABC is here to help. Translations ABC helps businesses and organizations communicate across languages, cultures, and borders—ensuring not just word-for-word accuracy, but that the right meaning is conveyed.

We’re thankful to serve industries such as business, healthcare, and education—and especially grateful for our incredible translators who bring over 200 languages to life. For more than 35 years, customers have trusted us to help share their message with the world. This season, we’re filled with gratitude for their continued partnership and support.