Redactor

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who edits or prepares written material for publication ; one who censors or removes sensitive content from documents ; an individual responsible for revising text to improve clarity and style
2. An editor who reviews and modifies texts before release ; a person tasked with censoring or obscuring confidential information in writing ; someone who refines and organizes content for publication purposes
3. A professional engaged in editing and correcting written works ; an individual who redacts or blackens out private details from documents ; one who alters and prepares manuscripts or articles for print or distribution

Etymology: "Redactor" is a plain formation: the verb "redact" with the agent suffix "-or", meaning one who does the redacting. "Redact" comes from Latin "redigere", "to bring back, reduce, put in order", and the sense of putting text into shape for release is what the word kept, while the modern sense of blacking out confidential material is a later narrowing. The suffix has a longer road. The agent ending traces back through Latin "-tor" and "-ator" to Proto-Italic and ultimately Proto-Indo-European roots, passing through Old French "-eor" before reaching Middle English as "-our" and, eventually, the spelling "-or" in English. Most English agent nouns in "-or" took this same path, so the suffix itself tells you little about this particular word.

Synonyms: editor, compiler, reviser, author