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.
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
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
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
Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, hardly ever picks up his blue pencil.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2023
Tight ballpoint hatching over lightly applied blue pencil, in “Monongahelia River Falls near Riverside West Virginia,” vividly produces the effect of rushing water.
From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2021
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
He takes a blue pencil and draws little colored dots and lines that make the eyes look deep and textured and full.
From "Mockingbird" by Kathryn Erskine
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
Army censors blue-penciled many unfavorable references to the Supreme Commander that came in from the States.
From Time Magazine Archive
Foe of book and stage censorship, in a city holding the record for censorship, the Transcript fought Prohibition, reported the Thaw case in "blunt, ugly words which pseudo-fastidious contemporaries mincingly blue-penciled."
From Time Magazine Archive
Here and there, where for a long period no blue-penciled passage occurred, imaginary censorings had been inserted merely to whip curiosity, with the result that the atmosphere of innuendo and suggestion was greatly increased.
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
The censor himself made up for his deficiency in English by blue-penciling everything he could not understand.
From Time Magazine Archive
Although blue-penciling has eased in recent years, English playwrights have persistently demanded total dramatic freedom, and last July Parliament abolished the Chamberlain's licensing authority.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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
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
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
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.]
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)
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.
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
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.
