# copyedit
## English
### Etymology

Back-formation from copy editor.

### Pronunciation

* Audio (US):(file)

### Verb

copyedit (third-person singular simple present copyedits, present participle copyediting, simple past and past participle copyedited)
* (transitive, printing) To correct the spelling, grammar, formatting, etc. of printed material and prepare it for typesetting, printing, or online publishing.
    Synonym: subedit
** 1990 April 28, Duncan Mitchell, “A Dazzling Parade Of Celebrity Names”, in Gay Community News, page 11:Memoirs of a Bastard Angel contains so many amazing howlers that it seems barely to have been copyedited or proofread.

#### Usage notes

* Of the alternative forms, copyedit is most common, followed by copy edit and copy-edit.
    In the American corpus, copyedit is an undisputed leader. In the British corpus, it is a tie between copyedit and copy-edit.
    Verb copyedit is in Merriam-Webster, AHD and Collins.
    Verb copy edit is in Merriam-Webster, AHD and Cambridge.
    Verb copy-edit is in AHD, Cambridge, Collins, Oxford Learner's, OED and Longman.
* The verb forms are indicated as mainly U.S. in Cambridge and Collins.
* Use of copy editor and copyeditor predates use of copy edit and copyedit.

#### Derived terms

* uncopyedited

#### Related terms

* copyediting
* copyeditor

#### See also

* proofread

### Noun

copyedit (plural copyedits)
* The process or act of copyediting a document.
** 1996, Dorothy L. Cady, Bulletproof Documentation: Creating Quality Through Testing, page 89:A copyedit is the final type of edit performed on documents.
** 2016, Leslie Vermeer, The Complete Canadian Book Editor, page 35:The copyedit may be strictly mechanical or may include stylistic changes.
* The result of copyediting a document.
** 2006, Brian Fagan, Writing Archaeology: Telling Stories About the Past, page 129:Your production editor will probably not contact you until the due date of the copyedit is established in-house.
* A single change to the text of a document that is an instance of copyediting.
** 1991, TEX Users Group, TUGboat, volume 12, page 365:For example, if the author is responsible for inserting the copyedits into the source files, then there are repercussions later on when changes are made during the page formatting stage.
** 2012, Constance Steinkuehler, Kurt Squire, Sasha Barab, Games, Learning, and Society: Learning and Meaning in the Digital Age, page 418:The copyedits in science.net — a game designed for middle school students — were somewhat less blunt, but they were supposed to retain the other salient features of the original.

#### Usage notes

* In noun usage, the form copyedit is most common, followed by copy edit and then the much less common copy-edit.

### References

* ↑ “copyedit”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
* ↑ at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* ↑ copyedited, copy edited, copy-edited at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* ↑ copyedits, copy-edits, copy edits at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* ↑ copyediting, copy editing, copy-editing at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* ↑ copyedited by,copy edited by,copy-edited by at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* 1 2 3 at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* 1 2 “copyedit”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
* 1 2 3 “copyedit”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
* 1 2 3 “copyedit”, in Collins English Dictionary.
* 1 2 3 “”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* ↑ “”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
* ↑ “” under “copy”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
* ↑ “” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
* ↑ at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
* ↑ at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

### Further reading

* “copyedit”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* “copyedit”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
* Copy editing on Wikipedia.Wikipedia