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Glite Dictionary
🦺 A sports official 🦺 To judge a game 📝 A work reviewer 📝 To review work
referee

referee

8 5.2
A person who reads and judges a paper before it is published
  • noun
  • /ˌrɛfəˈri/
translation icon : revisor
  • My thanks go to the two referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
  • anonymous referees
  • comments from referees
  • referee of the manuscript

How dare the referee criticise my work like this.

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Examples

  • We are indebted to a referee for suggesting this way of looking at market integration.

    Academic text (1993)

  • We are also grateful to five anonymous referees of the journal for helpful suggestions.

    Academic text (2000)

  • I sent the manuscript off to CUP nine months ago and I'm still waiting for the referee's reports, OK?

  • The author wishes to thank Scott Sumner and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.

    Academic text (1992)

  • The trenchant comments of an anonymous referee did much to sharpen the exposition.

    Academic text (1990)

  • The professor appreciated the feedback provided by the referee on his research article.

  • After submitting the paper, I eagerly awaited the comments from the referee reviewing my manuscript.

  • The journal's referee suggested several revisions to improve the clarity of my study.

Synonyms

reviewer
vsreferee
118 3.1

A person who reads and checks the quality of a paper, proposal, or code

acts as a formal judge and makes final decisions about suitability
reader
vsreferee
98 3.7

A person who looks at manuscripts to decide if they should be published

focuses on judging quality or suitability across written and other types of work
rater
vsreferee
4 4.6

A person who gives scores to work like tests or essays

considers overall quality and suitability rather than just giving a score

Compounds

assistant referee
3.4

A person with a flag on the sideline who helps the referee call offside and out of play

Surface Forms

referee singular
referees plural

Morphology

referee = refer (transparent) = refer + ee

Clear nominalization indicating 'a person to whom something is referred', which matches the sense of a reviewer/judge of work.

Etymology

Referee comes from the verb refer, which means 'to send something to someone for a decision'. In publishing and law, a referee is the expert people 'refer' a paper or case to when they want a careful judgment about quality or fairness.