stet

American

[stet] / stɛt /

verb (used without object)

let it stand (used imperatively as a direction on a printer's proof, manuscript, or the like, to retain material previously cancelled, usually accompanied by a row of dots under or beside the material).

verb (used with object)

to mark (a manuscript, printer's proof, etc.) with the word “stet” or with dots as a direction to let cancelled material remain.

stet British

/ stɛt /

noun

a word or mark indicating that certain deleted typeset or written matter is to be retained Compare dele

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

(tr) to mark (matter to be retained) with a stet

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of stet

1815–25; < Latin stēt, present subjunctive 3rd person singular of stāre to stand

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

stet stets stetting

Luckily, she was kind, and if you changed it she would just change it back and stet it without upbraiding you.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 16, 2015

Yet the 'Mostellaria' is certainly one of those plays to which the criticism of Horace— Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo,— is peculiarly applicable.

From The Roman Poets of the Republic by Sellar, W. Y.

At the foot of this was printed 'Supplico stet cedula'—Please don't tear down the bill.

From The Book-Hunter at Home by Allan, P. B. M.

Observe that there had been no charge or imputation against these men, more or less: stet proratione voluntas.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 by Various

When a letter or word has been wrongly stricken out, it may be restored by making a series of dots immediately beneath and writing the word stet in the margin.

From News Writing The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories by Spencer, M. Lyle (Matthew Lyle)

Yet the satanically refined egoism which lays hold of Septimius is the same spirit incarnated in Goethe's Mephistopheles,—der Geist der stets verneint.

From A Study of Hawthorne by Lathrop, George Parsons

In that dark face before them was Mephistopheles at least—der Geist der stets verneint—if nothing more violent.

From The First Violin A Novel by Fothergill, Jessie

The famous couplet— Ein Teil von jener Kraft Die stets das Böse will, und stets das Gute schafft— is far from expressing the Hegelian commonplace with which it is usually identified.

From Three Philosophical Poets Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe by Santayana, George

As a class, they may be called Geister die stets verneinen,—they are almost invariably in opposition to the party in power.

From Notes of an Itinerant Policeman by Flynt, Josiah

She makes any number of good decisions, such as stetting the Japanese term “freeter,” which essentially means “slacker” or barely employed.

From New York Times ● Jul. 23, 2018

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023