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scare quote

noun

Etymology

Coined by British analytic philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe in 1956 in her essay “Aristotle and the Sea Battle”. Originally spelt with a hyphen as scare-quotes.

Definitions

  1. A quotation mark deliberately used to provoke a reaction or to indicate that the author…

    A quotation mark deliberately used to provoke a reaction or to indicate that the author does not approve of a term or clause, rather than to identify a direct quotation.

    • One other important figure in postmodern thought is Richard Rorty, who might be characterized as master of the scare quote
    • He is inordinately fond of the scare quote, a sign that he is not really sure of what he's talking about.
    • An incidental pleasure is his witty mastery of the scare quote and the square bracket.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for scare quote. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA