censor

American  

[sen-ser] / ˈsɛn sər /

noun

1. an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.

2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

3. an adverse critic; faultfinder.

4. (in the ancient Roman republic) either of two officials who kept the register or census of the citizens, awarded public contracts, and supervised manners and morals.

5. (in early Freudian dream theory) the force that represses ideas, impulses, and feelings, and prevents them from entering consciousness in their original, undisguised forms.

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verb (used with object)

1. to examine and act upon as a censor.

2. to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.

censor British  

/ ˈsɛnsə, sɛnˈsɔːrɪəl /

noun

1. a person authorized to examine publications, theatrical presentations, films, letters, etc, in order to suppress in whole or part those considered obscene, politically unacceptable, etc

2. any person who controls or suppresses the behaviour of others, usually on moral grounds

3. (in republican Rome) either of two senior magistrates elected to keep the list of citizens up to date, control aspects of public finance, and supervise public morals

4. psychoanal the postulated factor responsible for regulating the translation of ideas and desires from the unconscious to the conscious mind See also superego

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verb

1. to ban or cut portions of (a publication, film, letter, etc)

2. to act as a censor of (behaviour, etc)

Other Word Forms

• anticensorial adjective
• censorable adjective
• censorial adjective
• censorian adjective
• noncensored adjective
• overcensor verb (used with object)
• precensor verb (used with object)
• recensor verb (used with object)
• uncensorable adjective
• uncensored adjective

Etymology

Origin of censor

First recorded in 1525–35; from Latin cēnsor, from cēns(ēre) “to give as one's opinion, recommend, assess” + -tor -tor; -sor instead of expected -stor by analogy with tōnsor “barber,” and similarly derived nouns ( tonsorial )

Example Sentences

In the latter case, it’s a question of who do we censor in our public spaces, how we make sure our public spaces are accountable to people.

From Salon

Ceremony host Alan Cumming described the night as "trauma triggering", adding: "We were all let down by decisions made to both broadcast slurs and censor free speech."

From BBC

Google famously exited the Chinese internet search market in 2010 after deciding it wasn’t comfortable censoring results to abide by the government’s censorship rules.

From The Wall Street Journal

The trial included testimony from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who told the court that the company is trying to be as “safe as possible but also censor as little as possible.”

From Los Angeles Times

Once we fought the Cold War arm in arm against “tyrannical forces” that “censored dissidents, that closed churches.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• abridge
• black out
• blacklist
• delete
• edit
• excise
• restrict
• sanitize
• suppress
• withhold