Something got lost in translation.

An NYPD edict appearing to ban drug cops from busting pushers after witnessing a deal going down was a giant miscommunication between top brass and detectives, sources said yesterday.

The mangled message was sent out Thursday, when drug cops were told they couldn’t make any more “observation arrests” without having an undercover cop on the scene, several sources.

The edict stunned drug cops.

“They were told point-blank they couldn’t make observation arrests without their undercovers,” one source said.

The mix-up came to light after The Post made inquiries about the perplexing order, and the NYPD consequently issued a clarification, the source said.

“They would have lost a lot of arrests,” another source said.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said yesterday that “narcotics officers were not ordered to halt all observation arrests for drug transactions, but to reserve low-level observation arrests for efforts in building larger cases.”

“It lost something in the translation from boss to boss,” a source said.

“People misinterpreted it.”