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
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
The secretary went into the adjoining room, to return presently with a file of newspapers, stitched neatly together, their columns marked here and there in blue-pencil.
From The Long Lane's Turning by Rives, Hallie Erminie
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
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
On one page she noticed a blue pencil mark in the margin.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
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
In the week that followed, lesser military leaders submitting speeches for clearance got them back heavily blue-penciled.
From Time Magazine Archive
"True excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion."
From Time Magazine Archive
The King held his breath as the blue-penciled passage drew near.
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
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
Every two-minute sequence requires 14 hours of blue-penciling, often as many as 100 splices.
From Time Magazine Archive
The editors are responsible for blue-penciling incorrect thinking, but they rarely have to.
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
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
With the most cheerful complacency the military authorities blue-pencilled their despatches to their governments.
From With the Allies by Davis, Richard Harding
"I mean that I blue-pencilled that one myself."
From A Crooked Mile by Onions, Oliver [pseud.]
A few days later, Lashmar found on his breakfast table a copy of the Hollingford Express, blue-pencilled at an editorial paragraph which he read with interest.
From Our Friend the Charlatan by Gissing, George
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
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 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.
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
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.
