censor sen'sor, or -ser, n. a magistrate who kept account of the property of Roman citizens, imposed taxes, and watched over their morals (hist./): an official with analogous functions elsewhere: any of several university officials: an official who examines books, papers, telegrams, letters, films, etc., with powers to delete material, or to forbid publication, delivery, or showing: an unconcious inhibitive mechanism in the mind, that prevents what is painful to concious aims from emerging into conciousness (psych.): one who censures or blames. - v.t. to subject to censorial examination or condemnation. - adjs. censorial (-ö'ri-el,-ö') belonging to a censor, or to the correction of public morals; censo'rian censorial; censo'rious expressing censure: fault-finding. - adv. censo'riously. - ns. censo'riousness; cen'sorship the office of censor: the time during which he holds office: the work of the censor, censoring. [L. censor, -oris.]
censor /'sense/ 1 n. official with power to suppress whole or parts of books, plays, films, letters, news, etc., on the grounds of obsenity, threat to security, etc. 2 v.t. act as censor of; make deletions or changes in. 3 censorship n.; censorial /-'sc:riel/ a. [L (censeo assess)]
censor - moderate, critic, ban, detractor
censor. A person or group that views films before they are shown to the general public in order to determine their meits, particularly in regard to objectionable material.
Censorship is a word of many meanings. In its broadest sense ir refers to suppresion of information, ideas, or artistic expression by anyone, whether government offcials, church authorities, private pressure groups, or speakers, writers, and artists themselves. It may take place at any point in time, whether before an utterance occurs, prior to its widespread circulation, or by punishment of the communicators after dissemination of their messages, so as to deter others from expression. In its narrower, more legalistic sense, censorship means only the prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages already produced. Thus writers who "censor" themselves before putting words on paper, for fear of selling their work, are not engaging in censorship in this narrower sense, nor are those who boycott sponsors of disliked television shows. Yet all of these restraints have the effect of limiting the diversity that would otherwise be available in the marketplace of ideas and so may be considered censorship in its broadest sense.