noun
- Plural of dittography; instances of unintentional repetition of letters, words, or phrases in writing or copying, especially in manuscripts.
Usage: technical term used in textual criticism, paleography, and manuscript studies; often refers to scribal errors in ancient or medieval texts
Examples
- Scholars identified several dittographies in the medieval manuscript that suggested careless copying.
- The dittographies found in the ancient Greek texts helped editors reconstruct the original versions.
- Textual critics must account for dittographies when comparing different manuscript versions.
- Common dittographies include the repetition of a single letter or an entire word by mistake.
- The presence of dittographies in the document indicated it was a copy rather than an original.