Other forms: reviews, reviewed, reviewing
A review is a published opinion of how good something is. A restaurant review, a five-star review, read the reviews.
Online reviews left by customers are now the commonest kind, and review site, review score and leave a review are everyday phrases. The other main sense is a formal examination of something to decide what to change: a pay review, a policy under review, an annual review. As a verb it covers both — review the film, review the decision — and in American English it also means to revise for an exam.
1nounreviewA published opinion of how good something is.
“One bad review closed the place inside a year.”
2nounexaminationA formal examination of something to decide what to change.
“The whole policy is under review until March.”
3verbexamineTo examine something again in order to judge or change it.
“They reviewed every case from the previous decade.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
review is a considered second look.
Old French reveue meant a seeing again, from Latin revidere — re-, again, plus videre, to see. Every sense is a second look: at a book, at a decision, at a line of soldiers on parade.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Latin
revideō
Old French
reveue
Middle English
revewe
English, today
review
Built from
From Middle English revewe, reveue, from Old French reveue, revue (Modern French: revue), feminine form of reveu, past participle of reveoir (French: revoir), from Latin revideō, from re- +videō (“see, observe”) (English: video). Equivalent to re + view. Compare retrospect. a doublet of revue.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA