1. The accidental repetition of a letter, word, or phrase in writing or printing.
Usage: technical term used in textual criticism and paleography; common scribal error in manuscript copying

Examples

• The manuscript contained a dittography where 'the the' appeared instead of 'the'.
• Scholars identified the dittography as a copying error made by a medieval scribe.
• The word 'and and' in the old text was likely a dittography rather than intentional repetition.
• Dittography is one of the most common types of errors found in ancient manuscripts.
• The editor corrected the dittography by removing the duplicate phrase from the text.