Editorial

How to spell editorial

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce editorial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does editorial mean?

1. nounAn article in a newspaper or magazine that states the publication's official opinion on an issue.
2. adjectiveRelating to the commissioning, editing, or content decisions of a publication.

Editorial in a sentence

• noun

  The morning editorial criticised the council's spending plans.

• adjective

  The reporter answers to the editorial team, not to advertisers.

• noun

  She wrote a sharp editorial about the new tax rules.

• adjective

  Strict editorial standards govern what the website publishes.

Where does editorial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb edere, meaning 'to give out' or 'to put forth', formed from e- 'out' and dare 'to give'; in the world of books it came to mean 'to publish'. From its past participle editus grew the agent noun editor, literally 'one who puts forth or produces', which English adopted in the 1600s for a person who prepares written work for publication. The adjective editorial, 'relating to an editor or to editing', appeared in the 1740s, and by the 1830s, especially in American newspapers, it was being used as a noun for an article in which the editor sets out the publication's opinion. The same dare 'to give' root quietly sits inside familiar relatives such as 'edition', 'add', and 'tradition'. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: writers must remember the -tor- agent piece before the -ial ending, not a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• edit- (from Latin edere: to put forth, publish)
• -or (agent: one who does)
• -ial (adjective/noun suffix)