What does dittoed mean?
Dittoed is the past tense and past participle of the verb "ditto," which has two related senses: to repeat or echo what someone else has said — often to signal agreement — and, more historically, to copy a document, particularly with a ditto machine. In conversation, saying that someone dittoed a remark conveys that they endorsed or repeated it without adding anything new: "She approved the plan, and her colleague dittoed the approval." The word derives from Italian "ditto," meaning "said" or "aforesaid," itself from Latin "dicere," "to say." It entered English in the early seventeenth century as a bookkeeping term used to avoid repeating a word above a line, later becoming the name of the spirit-duplication machine that produced the familiar purple-ink copies of twentieth-century classrooms. Today its most common use remains the figurative one of echoing or seconding a statement, giving English an economical way to express concurrence.
verb (past tense and past participle of "ditto")Dittoed is the past tense and past participle of the verb "ditto," meaning to repeat something already said or written, or to copy text or a document, especially using a ditto machine. In everyday use it often signals agreement with a previous statement.
- To repeat or echo what someone else has said, expressing agreement.
- To copy text or a document, especially by means of a ditto machine (spirit duplicator).
""I loved the film," she said, and her brother dittoed the sentiment."
"When the manager praised the design team, the client dittoed the compliment."
"In the days before laser printers, exam papers were commonly dittoed on a spirit duplicator."
Before photocopiers took over, offices ran on "ditto machines" — so a whole generation of school worksheets was literally dittoed into existence, purple ink and all.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dittoed
Dittoed traces back to the Italian "ditto," meaning "said" or "aforesaid," the past participle of "dire" ("to say"), which descends from the Latin verb "dicere." The term was borrowed into English in the early seventeenth century as a commercial and bookkeeping convention for avoiding repetition of a word or date written immediately above. From this use came the noun "ditto" and then the verb, and eventually the name of the ditto machine, a spirit duplicator popular in offices and schools until photocopiers superseded it. Related words sharing the Latin root include "dictate," "dictum," and "predict."
Related word forms
How dittoed is actually used
The verb is informal to neutral in register. The agreement sense is common in conversational speech, while the copying sense is now largely historical, tied to the ditto machine used widely from the 1920s through the 1970s before modern photocopiers displaced it.
Easily confused with dittoed
Despite superficial visual similarity in some fonts, "dittoed" means repeated or copied, while "data" refers to factual information; the confusion arises only from typography, not meaning.