- To prepare (written material) for publication or presentation, as by correcting, revising, or adapting.
- To prepare an edition of for publication: edit a collection of short stories.
- To modify or adapt so as to make suitable or acceptable: edited her remarks for presentation to a younger audience.
- To supervise the publication of (a newspaper or magazine, for example).
- To assemble the components of (a film or soundtrack, for example), as by cutting and splicing.
- To eliminate; delete: edited the best scene out.
An act or instance of editing: made several last-minute edits for reasons of space.
phrasal verbs:
edit in
- To insert during the course of editing: An additional scene was edited in before the show was aired.
- To delete during the course of editing: A controversial scene was edited out of the film.
[Partly back-formation from EDITOR and partly from French éditer, to publish (from Latin ēditus, past participle of ēdere : ē-, ex-, ex- + dare, to give).]
WORD HISTORY The word edit is often cited as an example of back-formation. In other words, edit is not the source of editor, as dive is of diver, the expected derivational pattern; rather, the reverse is the case. Edit in the sense "to prepare for publication," first recorded in 1793, comes from editor, first recorded in 1712 in the sense "one who edits." There is more to the story, however. Edit also comes partly from the French word éditer, "to publish, edit," first recorded in 1784. In the case of edit, two processes, borrowing and back-formation, occurred either independently or together, perhaps one person originally taking edit from French, another from editor, and yet a third from both.
