rewrite

Other forms: rewritten; rewriting; rewrote; rewrites

When you rewrite something, you start from scratch, writing it again to improve it. You might decide to rewrite a poem after your entire poetry class seems confused by your original version.

A newspaper editor might instruct a reporter to rewrite her story, approaching it from a new angle or including more interviews. To rewrite something is to edit it, but the word implies making significant changes — or even starting all over again with a blank piece of paper or computer screen. You can call the new version itself a rewrite too. In journalism, it was once common for a "rewrite man" to work crafting new stories out of other people's reporting.

Definitions of rewrite

1. verb

   write differently; alter the writing of
   “The student rewrote his thesis”

   types:

   decipher, decode, decrypt

   convert code into ordinary language

   transcribe, transliterate

   rewrite in a different script

   transcribe

   make a phonetic transcription of

   revise

   make revisions in

   Latinise, Latinize, Romanise, Romanize

   write in the Latin alphabet

   braille

   transcribe in braille

   amend

   make amendments to

   type of:

   write

   communicate or express by writing
2. verb

   rewrite so as to make fit to suit a new or different purpose
   type of:

   compose, indite, pen, write

   produce a literary work