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.
But recently the Army has stretched the pretext of "security" to blue-pencil information critical of the Army.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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
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
Good and true writing no magazine or newspaper editor will blue-pencil.
From The Last Harvest by Burroughs, John
Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, hardly ever picks up his blue pencil.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2023
In a sense it’s an inversion of the writer-editor relationship in books, with Rowling wielding the blue pencil over the scriptwriter’s work.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 12, 2016
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
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
Poet Pound used to look over Hemingway's early manuscripts in Paris and returned them, mercilessly blue-penciled, the adjectives gone.
From Time Magazine Archive
That done, he blue-penciled $1.1 billion from the legislature's fiscal 1984 budget proposals.
From Time Magazine Archive
Here and there, where for a long period no blue-penciled passage occurred, imaginary censorings had been inserted merely to whip curiosity, with the result that the atmosphere of innuendo and suggestion was greatly increased.
From King John of Jingalo The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties by Housman, Laurence
As a novelist, Jack — and Begley, by extension — could have benefited from a blue-penciling editor.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2016
"Why open with the fruit salad?" he asked, blue-penciling the menu.
From Time Magazine Archive
The editors are responsible for blue-penciling incorrect thinking, but they rarely have to.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Opposite them, at his brilliantly lighted window desk, sat McGuire Ellis, in full view of the crowd below, conscientiously blue-penciling telegraph copy.
From The Clarion by Stevens, William Dodge
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
With the most cheerful complacency the military authorities blue-pencilled their despatches to their governments.
From With the Allies by Davis, Richard Harding
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
But the reporter has struck, because I blue-pencilled his notes.
From The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted by Barrett, Katharine Ellis
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)
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
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
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.
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)
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.
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.
