editor

American  

[ed-i-ter] / ˈɛd ɪ tər /

noun

1. a person having managerial and sometimes policy-making responsibility related to the writing, compilation, and revision of content for a publishing firm or for a newspaper, magazine, or other publication.

   She was offered a managing editor position at a small press.

2. the supervisor or manager of a department of a newspaper, magazine, etc..

   the sports editor of a newspaper.

3. a person who edits, or selects and revises, material for publications, films, etc..

   a video editor;

   the editor of an online journal.

4. a device for viewing, cutting, and editing film or magnetic tape to make movies, audio recordings, etc.

5. Computers. a program used for writing and revising code, data, or text.

   an XML editor.

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editor British  

/ ˈɛdɪtə /

noun

1. a person who edits written material for publication

2. a person in overall charge of the editing and often the policy of a newspaper or periodical

3. a person in charge of one section of a newspaper or periodical

   the sports editor

4. films

   1. a person who makes a selection and arrangement of individual shots in order to construct the flowing sequence of images for a film

   2. a device for editing film, including a viewer and a splicer

5. television radio a person in overall control of a programme that consists of various items, such as a news or magazine style programme

6. a computer program that facilitates the deletion or insertion of data within information already stored in a computer

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• editorship
  noun

Etymology

Origin of editor

1640–50; < Medieval Latin, Late Latin: publisher; see edit, -tor

Explanation

Newspaper editors don't write the stories, but they come up with the story ideas, assign them to writers, read all of the drafts, and correct and change them to make them ready to be published. You can be an editor without working at a newspaper. Magazines and books are all worked on by editors. There are photo editors and film editors, who splice together the footage and determine a movie's pacing. Even if you just correct your friend's spelling mistakes, you're editing her work.

Example Sentences

She also gave the heave-ho to Executive Editor Draggan Mihailovich External link.

From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026

Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley had delivered a rebuke of CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss at a staff meeting Monday, accusing her of “murdering” the storied news show.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 3, 2026

“It would be absurd to keep going back and forth with the whims of the weather,” Dan Waber, Rainbow Tomatoes Garden’s owner, told Salon Senior Food Editor, Ashlie D. Stevens in June 2025.

From Salon • May 28, 2026

It is four years ago this week that I became the BBC's Political Editor.

From BBC • May 12, 2026

It gives great pleasure to the Editor to hear, from every quarter of our City, that universal health prevails in a degree equal to any former period.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy