text editor

American  

noun

Computers.

1. a program for editing stored documents, performing such functions as adding, deleting, or moving text.

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Other Word Forms

• text-editing adjective

Etymology

Origin of text editor

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

So Mr. Simonyi built a text editor, giving rise to modern word processors like Microsoft Word.

From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2023

“The greatest builders of technology, now all in Miami, start to realize the beach is more fun than staring at a text editor for 16 hours a day. No new apps are released in 2021.”

From The Verge • Dec. 18, 2020

To set up a Manubot project, users clone a dedicated GitHub repository to their computer and modify it using a standard programming text editor, such as Emacs or SublimeText.

From Nature • Mar. 30, 2020

I was just opening the project’s files in a simple text editor – we wrote the code for websites by hand – when the phone rang.

From The Guardian • Sep. 15, 2019

A text editor developed at MIT and modified by just    about everybody.

From The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996 by Raymond, Eric S.