Reviewing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Carefully examining or assessing something, such as a document or performance
2. The act of going over material or work to evaluate its quality or accuracy
3. Studying or inspecting information or work to form an opinion or make corrections

Etymology: The word is the present participle of "review," so its history is really the history of "review" itself. That verb reached English from Old French "reveüe," the feminine past participle of "reveoir," meaning "to see again." The Latin it descends from, "revidere," combined "re-" ("again") with "videre" ("to see"), the same root that gives English "video." A review, then, began as a second look. Those roots explain the sense the word carries now. Looking again at something to judge it is the original logic, and the idea of formal inspection, such as troops reviewed by a commander, grew out of the same notion of re-viewing. The word's sense of critically assessing a book, film or performance is a later extension of that inspection idea. Note that "revue," the theatrical entertainment, is a doublet of this word: the same Old French source, borrowed into English separately and keeping the French spelling and a distinct meaning.

Synonyms: evaluating, assessing, examining