blue-pencil
verb (used with object)
to alter, abridge, or cancel with or as with a pencil that has blue lead, as in editing a manuscript.
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blue-pencil
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blue pencil
blue pencilnoundeletion, alteration, or censorship of the contents of a book or other work
blue-pencil
American
[bloo-pen-suhl]
/ ˈbluˈpɛn səl /
verb (used with object)
blue-penciled,
blue-penciling,
blue-pencilled,
blue-pencilling
blue pencil
British
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of blue-pencil
First recorded in 1885–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
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 demanded somebody who would blue-pencil the interesting sentences in the important letters.
From Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann
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
“After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil, screaming or begging.”
From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2021
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
The one she’d drawn with her blue pencil would look especially nice, because it would match the color of the rugs.
From "The City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau
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
Army censors blue-penciled many unfavorable references to the Supreme Commander that came in from the States.
From Time Magazine Archive
His editor blue-penciled the phrase : "We don't want to be needlessly offensive to the Russians."
From Time Magazine Archive
The city editor blue-penciled my direct reference to your brands of canned stuff.
From El Diablo by Dan Sayre Groesbeck
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
Last fortnight, with 20 names before him, President Roosevelt started the blue-penciling which would continue until but one name remained: that of the successor to Willis Van Devanter as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
From Time Magazine Archive
The editors are responsible for blue-penciling incorrect thinking, but they rarely have to.
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 Evelyn E. Smith
His mother-in-law's interpolations that "it must be a long time first" were scarcely heard; and all her "exclusive information" was hurriedly blue-pencilled by the newspaper men.
From Vision House by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson
But the reporter has struck, because I blue-pencilled his notes.
From The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted by Katharine Ellis Barrett
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 Van Tassel Sutphen
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 J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
And one day, sitting alone in his office, a clerk brought him a morning paper with one column marked in a big blue-pencilled oval.
From The Younger Set by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the lapsus calami of God.
From Damn! A Book of Calumny by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
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 Jim Tinsley
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 O. Henry
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
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 Frederick H. Hitchcock
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.
