Revising

How to spell revising

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce revising

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does revising mean?

1. verbAltering or correcting a piece of writing or a plan to improve it.
2. verbGoing back over study material in preparation for an examination.

Revising in a sentence

• She spent the afternoon revising the contract before the meeting.

• He stayed up late revising for his history exam.

• The editor kept revising the opening chapter until it read smoothly.

• The students are revising all weekend before their final papers.

Where does revising come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb revisere, meaning 'to look at again' or 'to revisit', which was an intensive form of revidere, built from re- 'again' and videre 'to see'. The same videre root sits behind a whole family of familiar English words such as 'vision', 'visible', 'supervise' and 'video', all of which carry the idea of seeing. English took 'revise' from the French reviser (and directly from the Latin) in the 1500s, where it first meant to look over something carefully so as to correct or improve it. Over time the everyday sense settled into amending a written text, and in British usage it also came to mean going back over study material before an examination. Remembering that hidden 'vis' for seeing helps fix the spelling, since you are literally 'seeing again' what you read.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• vis (see, from Latin videre)
• -ing (present participle)