This word only seems to have sprung into common use recently, and what a very ugly word it is. It sounds a bit like reduced, and in a way that is what it means, to make less by editing. We’re forever hearing announcements by some government spokesperson or other that some text, report or verdict has been redacted… what they mean is, censored… and I quote:
redact – prepare for publication or presentation by correcting, revising, or adapting; “Edit a book on lexical semantics”; “she edited the letters of the politician so as to omit the most personal passages”
- edit
- alter, change, modify – cause to change; make different; cause a transformation; “The advent of the automobile may have altered the growth pattern of the city”; “The discussion has changed my thinking about the issue”
- interpolate, alter, falsify – insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby
- cut up, hack – significantly cut up a manuscript
- black out – suppress by censorship as for political reasons; “parts of the newspaper article were blacked out”
- blank out – cut out, as for political reasons; “several line in the report were blanked out”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/redact
Lois Elsden 