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.
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
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
“I’ll blue-pencil all your reportings, if you use such grammar as ‘like she does!’” said Alice sternly.
From The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted by Barrett, Katharine Ellis
Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, hardly ever picks up his blue pencil.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2023
“It Was Vulgar” isn’t perfect — this critic wanted to get out a blue pencil whenever Lowery overused the word “ultimately,” sometimes multiple times on a page, and his endnotes are scant.
From New York Times ● Apr. 5, 2022
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
While waiting for the next course, she again took out of her bag a blue pencil and a magazine that listed the radio programs for the week.
From "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
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
Most of such obvious examples of church baiting have now been blue-penciled away, often because they were singled out and criticized by Dr. Bernhard Olson, a Methodist who teaches at Union Theological Seminary.
From Time Magazine Archive
"True excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion."
From Time Magazine Archive
Some editor blue-penciled these parts, perhaps, as fanciful little digressions.
From The Crow's Nest by Day, Clarence
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
Due chiefly to subsequent pension legislation, he was unable last week to cut the estimate below $3,270,000,000 even after blue-penciling $100,000,000 worth of proposals.
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
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)
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 Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
"I mean that I blue-pencilled that one myself."
From A Crooked Mile by Onions, Oliver [pseud.]
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 Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)
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
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
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.
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)
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.
