red-penciling

verb

present participle of red-pencil
1
as in amending
to remove errors, defects, deficiencies, or deviations from the magazine claims that every article is red-penciled by a team of fact checkers before it ever sees the light of print

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2
as in censoring
to remove objectionable parts from a television script that had been heavily red-penciled in abject surrender to political correctness

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for red-penciling
  1. amending
  2. censoring
  3. correcting
  4. shortening
  5. reforming
  6. rewriting
Verb
  • Walls, in contrast, supports amending the policy so those charged with certain offenses no longer qualify for pretrial release.
    — Olivia Stevens, Chicago Tribune, 18 Oct. 2026
  • At the ballot box, voters have overwhelmingly rejected major pieces of the party’s agenda, including an effort to weaken their power to bypass the legislature by amending the constitution or putting laws passed by lawmakers to a statewide vote.
    — Jeremy Kohler, ProPublica, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of amending
Verb
  • Equal-time rule doesn’t apply, group says The equal-time rule prohibits broadcast stations from censoring or rejecting political ads paid for and sponsored by legally qualified candidates.
    — ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 29 Sep. 2026
  • Earlier in the week, Kraft allegedly led a pressure campaign to force the Seattle rapper off Ed Sheeran’s The Loop Tour, igniting a firestorm of backlash from artists and fans accusing Kraft of censoring Macklemore’s free speech.
    — Charisma Madarang, Rolling Stone, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of censoring
Verb
  • What can wait beyond the first day Some recovery tasks will continue beyond the first day, including disputing fraudulent accounts, correcting credit reports and following up with creditors.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 15 Oct. 2026
  • During practice, Blanco runs the mariachi through the setlist, correcting an out-of-tune student and improving an intonation.
    — Jessica Hill, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2026
Definition of correcting
Verb
  • As an investor at Point72, the hedge fund of billionaire Steve Cohen, Shaffer watched Wall Street turn private fund shares into digital tokens without shortening investors’ waits to cash out.
    — Camila Grigera Naón, Fortune, 15 Oct. 2026
  • The mission definitely succeeded, shortening the little asteroid's orbit around a larger rock called Didymos by about 33 minutes.
    — Meghan Bartels, Space.com, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of shortening
Verb
  • Over time, the objectives of this opposition have shifted from reforming the regime to challenging its authority.
    — Mansoor Moaddel, Foreign Affairs, 15 Oct. 2026
  • The population consisted of workers transforming the strip of land to be habitable, even desirable, reforming the cluster into a model of hospitality.
    — Erin Parish, Miami Herald, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of reforming
Verb
  • The findings are rewriting how specialists think about one of the most common and most dismissed complaints in women’s health.
    — Hanna Wickes, Sacbee.com, 19 Oct. 2026
  • The activities bleed treacherously into each other—editing can involve rewriting, and writing, certainly in my case anyway, involves self-editing.
    — Lola Seaton, The New York Review of Books, 17 Oct. 2026
Definition of rewriting
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Red-penciling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/red-penciling. Accessed 21 Oct. 2026.

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