Review the duplicate in its sentence
Accidental: «Please send the the report.» → «Please send the report.» A run such as «is is is» contains two extra copies, shown as one repeated group. Matching ignores capitalization and catches repeats across line breaks; punctuation ends a group.
Correct: «I had had enough.» Keep both words: the first had forms the past perfect. «The fact that that happened» and deliberate emphasis can also be correct. The checker does not decide intent and never deletes your words automatically. Review the context, then use Fix in the editor to keep working on the draft.
Why spell-check misses doubled words
«I think that the the results are clear.» Both «the»s are spelled correctly, so a basic spelling check may miss the duplicate — the error is that there are two of them. Accidental duplicates creep in when you edit a sentence, paste over part of it, or type across a line break, and they are genuinely hard to catch by re-reading because your eye smooths them over. This tool scans for any word repeated back-to-back, including across a line break, and flags each one.
A common tell in edited and translated drafts
Doubled words cluster in text that has been heavily revised — rewriting the same sentence several times, or pasting a translation over a draft, both leave stray repeats behind. For non-native writers working across two languages, the extra editing passes make it more likely, not less. A quick doubled-word scan before you submit removes a small but very visible error that reviewers notice immediately.
When a repeat is intentional
A few English constructions legitimately repeat a word: «I had had enough», «the fact that that happened», «it is very very cold». The checker flags these too — it cannot know your intent — so treat a flag as «look here», not «this is wrong». Delete the extra word when it is a slip, keep it when it is deliberate. For a broader tidy-up of spacing, stray characters, and formatting, pair it with the text cleaner.
Finding duplicate words, and the two kinds that matter
There are two different problems people mean by «duplicate words», and they need opposite fixes. The first is the accidental double — «the the», «is is» — left behind by editing. Spellcheckers catch some of these and miss the ones split across a line break, and when accidental, delete the extra copy and move on.
The second is genuine repetition: the same content word landing three times in a paragraph. That is not an error, and deleting is the wrong instinct — English tolerates repeating a key term far more than many languages do, and forcing a synonym onto a technical word makes writing worse, not better. This checker addresses only the adjacent double. It does not measure repeated vocabulary throughout a paragraph. Keep consistent technical terms; review broader repetition by reading the whole passage.
Take it further with Diglot
This free tool runs in your browser. When you want to act on what it shows — fix the grammar, tighten the phrasing, or make your English read like a native wrote it — that is what Diglot is built for. The free tier is meaningful for daily writing, no card required.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find duplicate words in my text?
- Paste your text above to find adjacent duplicate words such as «the the», including across line breaks. Each match shows nearby context and the number of extra copies. It does not list word frequencies or flag words repeated elsewhere in a paragraph.
- Is repeating a word always bad writing?
- No. English repeats key terms more readily than many languages, and swapping in a synonym for a technical or defined term makes the text harder to follow, not more elegant. Repetition is only a problem when it is unintentional — which is what the count is for.
- What counts as a repeated word?
- The same word written twice or more in a row, separated only by spaces or a line break — «the the», «is is is». Matching is case-insensitive, so «The the» is flagged too. Words repeated later in the sentence (not back-to-back) are not flagged, because those are usually intentional.
- Does it catch repeats across a line break?
- Yes. A word at the end of one line and the start of the next is one of the easiest duplicates to miss by eye, so the checker treats any whitespace, including newlines, as a separator.
- Why did it flag «had had» or «that that»?
- Those can be correct English («I had had enough», «the fact that that happened»). The tool cannot read intent, so it flags every back-to-back repeat and leaves the decision to you — keep the deliberate ones, delete the slips.
- Is my text uploaded anywhere?
- No. The check runs entirely in your browser — your text is never sent to a server or stored. You can safely paste confidential or unpublished writing.
