blue-pencil

[ bloo-pen-suhl ]
See synonyms for blue-pencil on Thesaurus.com
verb (used with object),blue-pen·ciled, blue-pen·cil·ing or (especially British) blue-pen·cilled, blue-pen·cil·ling.
  1. to alter, abridge, or cancel with or as with a pencil that has blue lead, as in editing a manuscript.

Origin of blue-pencil

1
First recorded in 1885–90

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use blue-pencil in a sentence

  • Some editor blue-penciled these parts, perhaps, as fanciful little digressions.

    The Crow's Nest | Clarence Day, Jr.
  • Then he took down the red and blue penciled handkerchief and he and Laddie took possession of the fort.

  • The letter had evidently been smuggled past the censor, for it contained much which Mrs. Fosdick would have blue-penciled.

    The Portygee | Joseph Crosby Lincoln
  • The King held his breath as the blue-penciled passage drew near.

    King John of Jingalo | Laurence Housman
  • I have seen the original letter, and the unfavorable part of it was blue-penciled.

    The Great American Fraud | Samuel Hopkins Adams

British Dictionary definitions for blue pencil

blue pencil

noun
  1. deletion, alteration, or censorship of the contents of a book or other work

verbblue-pencil -cils, -cilling or -cilled or US -cils, -ciling or -ciled
  1. (tr) to alter or delete parts of (a book, film, etc), esp to censor

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012