First recorded in 1885–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Glavlit, the Soviet censorship agency, combed some of the outgoing cables carefully, eliminating, among other things, mention of its own blue-pencil activity.
From Time Magazine Archive
But recently the Army has stretched the pretext of "security" to blue-pencil information critical of the Army.
From Time Magazine Archive
The thing I'd like to do if I ran a newspaper would be the telegraph editor and the blue-pencil man.
From Time Magazine Archive
He would "never go against the Weather Bureau," but once in a long while he does blue-pencil official forecasts that strike him as debatable.
From Time Magazine Archive
But "fine" writing is a different thing—a style that is conscious of itself, a style in which the thought is commonplace and the language studied and ornate, every judicious editor will blue-pencil.
From The Last Harvest by Burroughs, John
He was scheduled to host the program this Saturday, timed to the premiere of “Bupkis” — which also has Lorne Michaels as a producer — but the writers strike put a blue pencil through it.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2023
Go to “edit profile,” click the blue pencil next to the job you just lost, and you’ll have the opportunity to uncheck the “I currently work there” box, and to put in an end date.
From Forbes ● Sep. 8, 2014
Here's my choice of the novels that might weigh as much as a brick, but to which I'd never take a blue pencil.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 2, 2014
Bennett did not break out his blue pencil.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2014
He sat there and doodled with his blue pencil on a tablet, listening to me spiel to him for three or four minutes before he got a word in.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
Evidently, he took so seriously Bill’s exhortations to eliminate clutter that he had his last name legally blue-penciled and is now simply Jeff Stuart.
From The New Yorker ● May 19, 2015
Pound blue-penciled the words “bowels” and “trousers” in one early chapter.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 16, 2014
Since practically all Opposition papers in Italy have been suppressed, there were few pro-Matteotti articles to be blue-penciled by Fascist censors.
From Time Magazine Archive
He sent it for criticism to his friend, brilliant, erratic Poet Ezra Pound,* who blue-penciled it down to half its size.
From Time Magazine Archive
Opening the Rochester "News-Intelligencer" which Slade had sent him, his glittering eyes seemed to sparkle joy as a blue-penciled column met his gaze.
From The Air Trust by England, George Allan
As a novelist, Jack — and Begley, by extension — could have benefited from a blue-penciling editor.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2016
Lait's maiden column, sent to the Chief on approval, came back with minor blue-penciling and a marginal note: "Let's be amusing, but not vicious."
From Time Magazine Archive
"Why open with the fruit salad?" he asked, blue-penciling the menu.
From Time Magazine Archive
Few U. S. or British newsmen covering Rightist Spain have stood in the good graces of Generalissimo Franco's avid blue-penciling censors for long.
From Time Magazine Archive
For, seated on a stool behind the desk, haggard but vertical, was Senbot Drosmig, busily reading letters and blue-penciling comments on them with his feet.
From Helpfully Yours by Smith, Evelyn E.
It was a copy of the King William County Clarion, and a paragraph in the advertising columns was heavily blue-pencilled.
From In Jeopardy by Sutphen, Van Tassel
"I mean that I blue-pencilled that one myself."
From A Crooked Mile by Onions, Oliver [pseud.]
Easleby bought a copy of this issue as soon as he and Starmidge returned to town, and carefully blue-pencilled the cross-headed columns and the staring capitals above them.
From The Chestermarke Instinct by Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
Finally in looking over a skidway he noticed that one log had not been blue-pencilled across the end.
From Blazed Trail Stories and Stories of the Wild Life by White, Stewart Edward
Hastily he blue-pencilled his proofs, threw them into the wire basket, and hurried outdoors to seek the nearest tailor.
From Shandygaff by Morley, Christopher
Robbins was looking over the morning Pic., detecting, as young reporters will, the gross blunders in the make-up, and the envious blue-pencilling his own stuff had received.
From Roads of Destiny by Henry, O.
Some people just use the good old-fashioned method of printing out the text to be proofed, and blue-pencilling the mistakes.
From The Project Gutenberg FAQ 2002 by Tinsley, Jim
The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the lapsus calami of God.
From Damn! A Book of Calumny by Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
In rush seasons it will make use of publisher's description, after carefully blue-pencilling obtrusive adjectives, but it goes no farther.
From The Building of a Book A Series of Practical Articles Written by Experts in the Various Departments of Book Making and Distributing by Hitchcock, Frederick H.
Comedians will also submit their "gags" and comic scenes for blue-pencilling.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, July 18, 1917 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
