Printing. [3rd sing. pres, subjunct. of L. stāre to stand.] ‘Let it stand’; a direction in the margin of a proof or MS. that matter which has been altered or struck out is to remain uncorrected. Hence as v. trans., to cancel a correction or deletion of (words in a proof or MS.) by writing ‘stet’ in the margin and underlining the words with a series of dots.
1821. Dibdin, Bibliogr. etc. Tour, I. 129. I could discover … that … he wished me to … leave him to his deles and stets!
1875. Southward, Dict. Typogr., s.v.
