dittovsDuttonWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ditto is a noun, Dutton is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ditto” is a noun and “Dutton” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,595
“ditto” frequency rank
#22,361
“Dutton” frequency rank
39956
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ditto Dutton
Definition That which was stated before, the aforesaid, the above, the same, likewise. A placename:

Letter map: ditto vs Dutton

Shared letters muted; letters that set ditto and Dutton apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
ditto
6 ch
Dutton

Part-of-speech tell for ditto / Dutton

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ditto is anoun and Duttonaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39956, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ditto is recorded at frequency rank #17,595, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɪtəʊ/. Dutton is at rank #22,361, tagged as aname.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 39956, this pair ranks #271,987 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ditto vs Dutton

Shared letters: dot. Private to "ditto": i. Private to "Dutton": nu.

"ditto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Dutton" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dittodditto · dito · ditot · dtito · idtto
  • Duttonddutton · dtuton · duton · dutotn · duttno · duttonn · udtton

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ditto" for "Dutton" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ditto" is a noun and "Dutton" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ditto" vs "Dutton" - which ranks higher?
"ditto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,595 in our English list, against #22,361 for "Dutton". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ditto" and "Dutton". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ditto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Dutton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,987 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ditto" and "Dutton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ditto vs ditty". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #271,987 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list