'anticensorship' originates from English, specifically from combining the prefix 'anti-' (from Greek 'anti' meaning 'against') with the noun 'censorship' (from Latin 'censura' via Old French/Latin-derived English).

'censorship' comes from Latin 'censura' (a public office of judgment) which entered English via Old French and Medieval Latin as 'censure'/'censorship'. The productive English prefix 'anti-' (from Greek) was later attached to form compounds such as 'anticensorship' in modern English usage.

Initially the elements meant 'against' (anti-) and the institutional practice of 'judging or inspecting' (censura); over time the compound came to mean specifically 'opposition to censorship' or 'policies opposing censorship' in contemporary discourse.