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Out of sortsMeaningMildly unwell; not in one's usual health or state of mind. Origin
For sets of type blocks to be 'out of sorts' would clearly be unwelcome to a typesetter. That terminology could be the source of the phrase and the notion is certainly a tempting one. We need to be cautious with that attribution however as the above citation is pre-dated by one from The proverbs, epigrams, and miscellanies of John Heywood, 1562, which makes no explicit mention of typesetting:
That unusual definition of 'fit' is, oddly, almost the opposite of our current usage of the word as an adjective. It may well turn out that pre-1562 citations that refer to typesetting will be found; after all, Gutenberg invented moveable type printing in around 1440. Until then, I'm sure that many people will opt to believe that 'out of sorts' derives from typesetting. All I can do is present you with the evidence as I find it and let you come to your own conclusions. See also: out of kilter. Phrasefinder is also on
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Since at least the 17th century 'sorts' has been the name of the letters used by typographers. This usage is referred to in Notes on a Century of Typography at the University Press Oxford 1693–1794 and is nicely defined in Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-works - Printing, 1683:
