rejection slip

noun

1. a notification of rejection, attached by a publisher to a manuscript before returning the work to its author.

Word History and Origins

Origin of rejection slip¹

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

I would open the envelope to find all the drawings and the rejection slip—did anyone even look at them?

From The New Yorker

One week, there was a torn slip of paper clipped onto the rejection slip, which said, in an almost unreadable scrawl, “Holding one.”

From The New Yorker

She thought of her letter, her sugarcoated rejection slip.

From Literature

Ten typed-up poems lay beneath a printed rejection slip from Criterion magazine, initialed by Mr. Eliot himself.

From Literature

I never would just send back a rejection slip.

From Salon