Ditto Meaning: One Word for the Same Again

Ditto meaning in speech and in writing

1. Me too, or I agree: a short spoken or typed reply. "I loved that concert." "Ditto."
2. The same as above: in a list, table or account book, ditto means repeat the entry from the line before. People write it as a word, as the ditto mark, or as do. in older records.
3. The same thing applies: used in running speech to avoid repeating yourself. "The first hotel was noisy. Ditto the second."
4. To repeat or copy (verb): less common. "She dittoed everything her manager said."

So to define ditto in one line: it stands in for words that have just been used.

Everyday ditto examples

• "I'm so done with this rain." "Ditto. I want summer back."
• The receipt listed three notebooks at the same price, with ditto marks under the first amount.
• Our old phone was slow and kept freezing; ditto the new one, sadly.
• My brother ordered the grilled veggie wrap, and I said, "Ditto for me."
• He has a habit of dittoing every opinion his boss shares in meetings.

How the ditto mark works

The ditto mark looks like a pair of straight or curly quotation marks, and you place it under a word or number to show that it repeats. Here is a small packing list:

Read across, the shorts are blue and medium, and the jacket is black and medium. The mark is handy on handwritten lists and in older ledgers, but in typed documents it is better to repeat the word or use a clear table, because ditto marks can be misread or lost when text is copied.

Italian roots: from said to same

English borrowed ditto in the 1620s from a Tuscan dialect form of the Italian word detto, which means said. Italian merchants wrote it in lists of dates to avoid repeating the name of a month, as in "the said month". English first used it the same way, for dates, and within about fifty years it had come to mean the same thing or the same as above in general. Detto goes back to Latin dicere, to say, the root of English words such as dictate and diction. Several other borrowed shortcuts used in writing, such as et al. and vice versa, also came from older languages.

Ditto, likewise, same and me too

Ditto works best when you agree with a statement. It sounds odd as a reply to good wishes, where likewise or you too fits better.

When ditto is the wrong choice

Avoid ditto in formal emails, essays and legal papers, where it can look careless; repeat the words or write the same applies to. Be careful with serious news, too: answering "I lost my job" with "ditto" can sound flippant, even if it is true. In those moments a full sentence shows more care. For more set phrases that carry meaning in a word or two, see our idiom page and browse our phrases and greetings collection.