inverted comma
1
3.8
- noun
- /ɪnˈvɜrtɪd ˈkɑmə/
- UK
:
comillas
- His inverted commas around the word environmentalist were bizarre, but telling.
Examples
-
I'm troubled by the dangling inverted comma, which seems to imply that Muller said much more than this.
Blog text (10) -
(I use inverted commas because he's not really famous at all, though he seems to think he is.)
Blog text (20) -
Inverted commas should always encircle the word to point to its origin and to prevent its sense from becoming naturalized.
Academic text (1996) -
Listen, that sentence above in inverted commas about male privilege guaranteeing that he has it so much easier than women is feminism in a nutshell.
Blog text (31) -
You used inverted commas... "hurricane"... insinuating that it wasn't really a hurricane... stupidity.
Blog text (19) -
In the sentence, he referred to her as an 'expert' using inverted commas to indicate that it was a label others had given her.
-
The teacher explained that inverted commas are essential for showing when someone else's words are being quoted.
-
When writing dialogue, it is important to use inverted commas to separate what the character says from the narrative.
Synonyms
305
2.3
Marks at the start and end of words that show someone's exact speech or writing
8
1.1
Small signs in writing used to show the exact words someone said or a short title like a song
1
1.3
A symbol like a period or comma that separates sentences and shows meaning
Two quotation marks used to show direct speech or a quotation
A punctuation mark like an apostrophe used to show speech or a quote inside another quote
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'quotation mark' is directly derivable from combining 'inverted' (turned upside down) with 'comma' (a punctuation mark): an inverted comma describes a comma-shaped mark flipped to indicate quoted material. This is a transparent, descriptive composition that a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily understand, though the phrase is chiefly a British variant.
Etymology
Inverted comma may come from the idea of an upside-down comma placed at the start of a line and a normal one at the end to show someone else's 'words' or a 'quote'. That's why inverted comma now means the marks we put around words to show they were said or quoted.