revision

Pluralrevisions

Formsrevisions, revisioning, revisioned

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act or process of reviewing, editing, and amending a text or work.

   The manuscript underwent extensive revision before publication.

   Careful revision improved the clarity of the funding proposal.

   Similarediting, amendment, rewriting, correction, alteration

   Note

   The word came into English from French révision, itself from Latin revīsiō. As a process it needs no article: revision can turn a passable paper into an excellent one. Each round of the work can also be counted. Logicians have made a technical term of it: belief revision is the business of deciding which beliefs to keep, done in a way that can be repeated.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An altered form or edition of something, or an individual change made to it.

   The latest revision of the contract addressed the missing clauses.

   Software revisions often introduce both fixes and new bugs.

   Similarversion, edition, update, amendment, modification

   Note

   A revision in this sense is something you can number. Standards and technical drawings carry revision 2 or revision 3, with a revision number marked beside the change. In meeting procedure the word means more than an amendment. When members consider a revision of their bylaws, the current text is not under discussion at all, and if the revision is defeated the old bylaws stand unchanged.

3. 3
   nounAustraliaNew ZealandUKcountable or uncountable

   The process of reviewing previously learned material, especially one's own notes, in preparation for a test or examination.

   Most students begin their revision several weeks before the GCSE exams.

   Group revision sessions are common in the run-up to finals.

   Similarreview, study

   Note

   A use at home in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, where students do their revision before exams and last-minute revision is a familiar habit. Readers from elsewhere may hear only the editing sense, so "I'm doing revision tonight" can mislead. One speaker means rereading notes; the other means rewriting a draft. If the context is an exam, the sense is this one.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A story corrected or expanded by a writer hired by the original author to do so.

   The estate commissioned a revision to complete the author's final, unfinished book.

   Critics debated whether the revision honored the original writer's intentions.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To give a person, group, or organization a fresh vision or outlook.

   The incoming CEO sought to revision the struggling firm entirely.

   Communities can revision themselves after a crisis.

   Similarreimagine, reinvent

   Note

   A separate coinage, re- plus vision, that only shares its spelling with the nouns. As a verb it gives revisioned and revisioning, and its third-person form revisions looks exactly like the plural noun. It is often hyphenated to keep the parts visible. Michael Bronski wrote of "re-imagining and re-visioning classic Broadway comedy" in 1991. It means reimagining, not editing.

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