editor

American  

[ed-i-ter] / ˈɛd ɪ tər /

noun

• editors
  plural

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• editors
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of editor

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

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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

See Examples For:

editor editors

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario and former assistant editor Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this report.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026

Ms. McClain is assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

“To put it more precisely: a Zacharia is about .4 of a Scaramucci,” Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare, posted on Blue Sky.

From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026

Both of them have latterly turned to personal projects, working with their wives -- film editor Tricia Cooke and actress Frances McDormand -- on movies such as "Honey Don't" and "The Tragedy of Macbeth".

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

Anthony managed the business side while Stanton—with assistance from coeditor Parker Pillsbury, a former editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard—handled the editorial content.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

Around 75% of them are creatives: filmmakers, editors, sound designers and composers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026

That point is proved time and again, as editors scheme against each other, belittle each other’s literary taste and throw Batter under the bus whenever an opportunity arises.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

They arrived “by the cartloads,” said Larry Bensky, one of the editors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

"My own editors wouldn't let me publish a scoop based on a single anonymous source, and here you are telling me I'm a spy," he recalls in his book.

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026

Harris and Watkins wrote letters to editors complaining they’d been quoted out of context, their story sensationalized to “distort, misrepresent and terrify.”

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

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