Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To censor, cut, revise, or correct with or as if with a red pencil.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to correct written documents.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

red + pencil

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Examples

  • When the previous government proposed cuts to the permanent collection of the British Library — the nearest thing we have to a national memory — it became clear how little this notion had registered with red-pencil types.

    A Debate Over Books and Sequestered Nooks Sam Leith 2011

  • The tiny voice in her head made the necessary red-pencil correction.

    FALSE MERMAID ERIN HART 2010

  • The tiny voice in her head made the necessary red-pencil correction.

    FALSE MERMAID ERIN HART 2010

  • I wouldn't just red-pencil stuff, I'd get a big paintbrush and paint whole chapters red.

    Bloat Walter Jon Williams 2009

  • I wouldn't just red-pencil stuff, I'd get a big paintbrush and paint whole chapters red.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Walter Jon Williams 2009

  • How would the Declaration of Independence, for instance, read if he'd been able to red-pencil it before the Founding Fathers could post it?

    Scott Carter: Phil Cooney's Little Red Pencil 2008

  • Bed of Nails was an improvement over Death's Door, even if I did want to start red-pencil editing the broad strokes of subculture and topic description: in the Slade tradition of stylizing the villain while trying to hide the villain's identity, one of the villains is "the Goth".

    Fri-Sun: ClareFader/shop/jam/party/Nancy Baker/Alex Maness/film badger 2004

  • He handed a map, with red-pencil and blue-pencil markings, along to von Schlichten.

    Uller Uprising Piper, H. Beam 1952

  • He handed a map, with red-pencil and blue-pencil markings, along to von Schlichten.

    Ullr Uprising H. Beam Piper 1934

  • He handed a map, with red-pencil and blue-pencil markings, along to von Schlichten.

    Uller Uprising H. Beam Piper 1934

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