Edit

How to spell edit

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce edit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does edit mean?

1. verbTo prepare written, visual, or recorded material by correcting, cutting, or rearranging it.
2. nounA single change or correction made to a document, recording, or image.

Edit in a sentence

• verb

  Please edit the report before the board meeting.

• noun

  The document shows every edit made by the team.

• verb

  She will edit the footage down to a three minute clip.

• noun

  One small edit fixed the broken link on the page.

Where does edit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is a back-formation from 'editor', which English took from the Latin editor, an agent noun built on the verb edere meaning 'to give out' or 'to put forth'. That verb is itself a compound of the prefix e- or ex- (meaning 'out') and dare (meaning 'to give'), so the literal idea is of giving something out to the public, that is, publishing it. An 'editor' in the early 1700s was the person who issued or prepared a work for publication, and by the early 1790s English speakers worked backwards from that noun to create the verb 'edit', meaning to prepare or revise text for printing. The sense later broadened to cover correcting, trimming, and rearranging any material, including film and audio. The same dare root for 'give' also sits inside 'tradition' (a giving across) and 'render', which is a handy reminder that the spelling keeps a single d and a plain -it ending.

How the word is built

• e- (out, from ex-)
• -dit (from dare: to give)
• (English noun/verb use)