Shirt a Phobia

Sample Page

This article is about the proofreading symbol. For other uses, see Dele (disambiguation).
A dele.
A dele.

A dele[1][2] or deleatur[citation needed] (/ˈdiːliː/, /ˌdiːliːˈeɪtər/) is an obelism (a proofreading symbol) used to mark something for deletion.

Name

Dele, the more common term in modern American English (sometimes used as a verb, e.g. “Dele that graf“), coincides with the imperative form of the Latin delere (“to delete”). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes an earlier use in English of deleatur (Latin “let it be deleted”), and suggests that dele in English may have been an abbreviation for the longer word.

Origin

The origin of the symbol appears to be an archaic letter D in the Kurrent script, as an abbreviation for dele or deleatur.[citation needed] It is markedly similar (if not identical in some cases) to the symbol for the German penny (pfennig symbol) which is an archaic lowercase d, for denarius. As with most hand-written letters and symbols, its appearance is variable.

A different theory states simply that it is “a form of ‘d’ meaning ‘delete.'”[2]

Computer representation

There is no character for the dele symbol in Unicode as of version 15.0 from September 2022.[3][4][needs update] Its addition was once proposed in 2021.[5]

Usage

A section of proofread text,[2] with a dele in the left margin indicating the stricken text (“and other,”) is to be deleted. (The marks in the right margin mean, from left to right and top to bottom: replace stricken slash with one en dash; insert semicolon; insert comma; and transpose circled text.)

The dele is used in proofreading and copy editing, where it may be written over the selected text itself (such that it often resembles a stretched cursive e), or in the margin alongside the selected text, which is usually struck through with a line.

The stricken text or the dele itself may be framed by top and bottom curved brackets, as in the above example, to indicate that the space left after deletion is to be closed up. As the need for such closing up can usually be inferred by context, however, the brackets are often omitted.

A dele can be undone with a stet.

Symbols similar in appearance

In some of its forms, the dele is similar in appearance to:

In the form “used by ISO and BS“,[5] the dele is somewhat similar in appearance to the percent sign, but missing its lower bulb.

In a third form,[6] the dele is similar in appearance to the unrelated characters U+0264 ɤ LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN, U+27B0 ➰︎ CURLY LOOP, U+0AEA ૪ GUJARATI DIGIT FOUR, U+0263 ɣ LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA.

In another form,[7] the dele resembles somewhat a hollow U+266A ♪ EIGHTH NOTE, or perhaps an ornate, calligraphic lowercase letter d.

There are yet more forms, which are even harder to characterize[1][2]

See also

List of proofreader’s marks

References

  1. ^ a b Webster, Noah (1886). Webster’s complete dictionary of the English language. London : George Bell & Sons. p. 1784. Retrieved 29 May 2026.
  2. ^ a b c d Proofreading (PDF). Retrieved 29 May 2026.
  3. ^ “Character Name Index”. The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  4. ^ “The Unicode Standard, Version 15.0. Archived Code Charts” (PDF). The Unicode Consortium. 2022-09-13.
  5. ^ a b Silva, Eduardo Marín (2021-11-16). “Proposal for the inclusion of the DELETE SIGN for proofreading” (PDF). The Unicode Consortium. L2/21-230.
  6. ^ “Proofreaders’ Marks”. www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 29 May 2026.
  7. ^ “Proof Correction Marks” (PDF). British Standards Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 December 2017. Retrieved 13 May 2016. Delete [followed by “textual mark”s and then a “marginal mark” vaguely resembling a musical note]