censor

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to subject to political, religious, or moral censorship

   This magazine is censored by the government.

2. 2
   noun

   An algorithm that approves or rejects something on grounds of taste or morality etc.

   I tried using a dirty word as my user name for the online game, but the censor rejected it.

3. 3
   verb

   To partially obscure an observation.

   Early dropout is one cause of right-censoring.

Simplified etymology

Censor originally referred to either of two Roman magistrates responsible for conducting censuses and supervising public morals; the title is related to Latin censere, “assess.” The sense “official who inspects material before publication” appeared in the mid-17th century. Censure and census come from the same root.

The noun is borrowed from Latin cēnsor (“magistrate; critic”), from cēnseō (“to give an opinion, judge; to assess, reckon; to decree, determine”) + -sor (variant of -tor (suffix forming masculine agent nouns)). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱens- (“to announce, proclaim; to put in order”). The English word is cognate with Late Middle English sensour, Proto-Iranian *cánhati (“to declare; to explain”), Sanskrit शंसति (śaṃsati, “to declare”). The verb is derived from the noun.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary