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

When a word or words have been struck out, and it is subsequently decided that they shall remain, make dots under them, and write the word stet in the margin.

From "Stops", Or How to Punctuate A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students by Paul Allardyce

The Crown retired from the suit with a stet processus and Mr. Bradlaugh was left with the laurels—and his costs.

From Reminiscences Of Charles Bradlaugh by G. W. (George William) Foote

But the combined instigation of prose, rhyme, and retort would send Aristides himself to Tartarus, if it were not pretty certain that Minos would grant a stet processus under the circumstances.

From A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I by David Eugene Smith

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 M. Lyle (Matthew Lyle) Spencer

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 George Santayana

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 Jessie Fothergill

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 George Parsons Lathrop

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 Josiah Flynt

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

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