revise

Formsrevises, revising, revised

Pluralrevises

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To review written material and alter or amend it to correct or improve it.

   We revise the contract whenever the regulations change.

   After the committee's feedback, she revised the entire report.

   Similaramend, edit, rewrite, redraft, update

   Note

   Behind the editing sense is a Latin verb of looking: revīsō, from re- and vīsō "examine," itself built on videō "see." To revise is literally to see again, and the changes follow from that second look. The past participle settles before nouns as a fixed label, as in a revised edition. Booth, Colomb and Williams's The Craft of Research (2008) shows the repeated working form: good writers "revise and revise."

2. 2
   verbAustraliaNew ZealandUKtransitive or intransitive

   To go back over material already written or learned, especially when preparing for an exam.

   Students revise for their A-levels throughout the spring term.

   He spent the whole evening revising his history notes.

   Similarreview

   Note

   A schoolroom word of the UK, Australia and New Zealand, where students revise and nobody changes a line. It takes an object (revise your notes, revise vocabulary) or stands alone with for (revise for my exams). Outside those regions, review is the safer choice, because there the verb is easily heard as the editing sense. In that reading, revising your notes would mean rewriting them.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An act of reviewing or revising something already produced.

   The editor requested a thorough revise of the opening section.

   After a quick revise, the proposal read far more clearly.

   Similarrevision, edit, rewrite, redraft

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A proof sheet pulled after the first one, incorporating the corrections marked on an earlier proof.

   The compositor pulled a revise once the first round of corrections had been entered.

   Each revise was compared against the marked-up galley before printing.

   Note

   A word from the print shop's proof sequence. The first proofs are marked up, and the revises come back to show that the corrections were made. Final page proof follows. The word usually travels in the plural with the. Trollope in 1869 looks back at "the revises of Bullhampton," and David Lodge waits to see the revises until his text is "irrevocably fixed."

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