coauthor

noun co·au·thor \ (ˌ)kō-ˈȯ-thər \

variants: or co-author

Updated on: 22 Apr 2018

Definition of coauthor

plural coauthors or co-authors

: one who collaborates with another person in authoring a literary or dramatic work, a document, a legislative bill, etc.

coauthors of many books and plays

the coauthors of new legislation

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coauthor

or co-author transitive verb coauthored or co-authored; coauthoring or co-authoring

- … he coauthored legislation … requiring the publication on the Internet of the cost of all federal contracts, grants, and congressional "earmarks,"…
- —Michael Tomasky
- a co-authored book

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coauthorship

play \(ˌ)kō-ˈȯ-thər-ˌship\ or co-authorship noun

- … accepting coauthorship on studies to which they did not significantly contribute.
- —Mary Murray

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Recent Examples of coauthor from the Web

Hemingway’s coauthors worked in the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan, one of the fastest rising—and eroding—belts in the world.

— paul voosen, Science | AAAS, "Eroding mountains could release, not trap, greenhouse gases," 12 Apr. 2018
Hank Klibanoff, coauthor with former Inquirer executive editor Gene Robert of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Race Beat, and himself a former Inquirer reporter and editor, is among those interviewed.

— ellen gray, Philly.com, "TV picks: 'Instinct,' 'Station 19,' 'Krypton' and more," 16 Mar. 2018
The bill has 14 other coauthors from the state Assembly and Senate.

— jon brodkin, Ars Technica, "Calif. weighs toughest net neutrality law in US—with ban on paid zero-rating," 14 Mar. 2018
In a 10-year study published earlier this year by Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, Ferguson and his coauthors found that other forms of violent play, such as toy guns, were similarly insignificant in their ability to predict violent outcomes.

— lucy diavolo, Teen Vogue, "Following Trump's Meeting on Violent Video Games, Experts Explain What the Research Really Shows," 14 Mar. 2018
Jennings and his coauthor Christopher Wlezien, a political scientist at the University of Texas, essentially examined the difference between how a candidate or party polled and the actual, final share.

— adam rogers, WIRED, "Maybe Election Polls Aren't Broken After All," 12 Mar. 2018
Recipe courtesy of Sara Quessenberry, coauthor of The Good Neighbor Cookbook.

— Country Living, "Leeks and Halibut in Parchment," 10 Jan. 2011
Another was a problem cracked in the 1990s by British number theorist Andrew Wiles and a coauthor: that work led them to solve Fermat’s last theorem, earning Wiles the Abel Prize in 2016.

— davide castelvecchi, Scientific American, "“Grand Unified Theory of Math” Nets Abel Prize," 20 Mar. 2018
His daughter Lucy has written books for children with her father as coauthor.

— martin rees, Newsweek, "A Brief History of My Friend Stephen Hawking, the Man Who Changed Our Times," 14 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'coauthor.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.