redact
rih-DAKT
/rɪˈdækt/
To edit text for publication, or to censor/obscure sensitive or private information before release.
Modern usage strongly emphasizes blacking out confidential or forbidden text in legal and intelligence documents.
The story behind the word. From Latin 'redactus', past participle of 'redigere' (to drive back or reduce). Originally in 18th-century English, 'redact' meant to put literary material into order. In the late 20th century, with transparency laws, it shifted almost exclusively to mean obscuring classified text.
Word relationships
- censor: Censor implies suppressing ideas or moral content; redact implies obscuring specific data for legal/privacy reasons.
- excise: Excise means physically cutting out sections, whereas redact often means blacking over while retaining document structure.
- disclose: Disclose exposes information fully to public view.
- unmask: Unmask reveals hidden details.
Commonly confused with
- redo: Redo means to perform a task again; redact means to obscure sensitive document content.
Word family
- redaction (noun): The process of redacting text, or a redacted document.
- redactor (noun): One who redacts documents.
Collocations
- redact sensitive info
- heavily redacted
- redact names
- redact classified documents
Idioms & expressions
- black out
Example sentences
- "When government agencies release classified reports under public pressure, they often redact entire pages until only prepositions remain." Investigative journalism
- "The court ordered lawyers to redact all personal identification numbers before filing the public record." Legal process
Memory hook
REDACT -> RED-act -> striking out lines like editing in dark ink. Blacking out sensitive text with dark bars.
When not to use
Do not use for routine literary editing for style; redact specifically implies masking restricted information.
Fun facts
- PDF documents are sometimes improperly redacted by placing black shapes over text without deleting the underlying code, allowing readers to highlight and copy the hidden text.
Related words
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