ditto [E17th] A Tuscan dialect form of Italian detto ‘said’, from Latin dictus, is the root of ditto. In the 17th century it meant in Italian ‘(in) the aforesaid month’. English merchants began to use it in accounts and lists, where the word is usually represented by double apostrophes (ditto marks) under the word or figure to be repeated: the symbol would be read out as ‘ditto’. In the later 18th century clothiers and tailors used it as shorthand for ‘the same material’, and a suit of dittos was a suit of the same material and colour throughout.