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Here's a quiz for all you etymology buffs. Can you pick the words from the following list that come from the same Latin root?
A. redaction B. prodigal C. agent D. essay
E. navigate F. ambiguous
If you guessed all of them, you are right. Now, for bonus points, name the Latin root that they all have in common. If you knew that it is the verb agere, meaning to "to drive, lead, act, or do," you get an A+. Redaction is from the Latin verb redigere ("to bring back" or "to reduce"), which was formed by adding the prefix red- (meaning "back") to agere. Some other agere offspring include act, agenda, cogent, litigate, chasten, agile, and transact.
Examples of redaction in a Sentence
Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2025
According to the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit that compiles historical government records about the JFK assassination and other events, roughly 3,500 documents in the official collection contained redactions before the latest release.
—Stefan Becket, CBS News, 18 Mar. 2025
Hood never shows this chronology to Helen, but lays it out—with some redactions—for the reader.
—Bekah Waalkes, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2025
But the name of the drug and the type of potential contamination that inspectors worried about were not clear due to the FDA’s redactions.
—Patricia Callahan, ProPublica, 20 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for redaction
Cite this Entry
“Redaction.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redaction. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
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