so to speak


Phrased like this, in a manner of speaking, as in He was, so to speak, the head of the family, although he was only related by marriage to most of the family members. This term originally meant “in the vernacular” or “lower-class language” and was used as an aristocrat's apology for stooping to such use. [Early 1800s] Also see as it were.

Words Nearby so to speak

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use so to speak in a sentence

  • For the purpose he would make a few remarks as a basis of his "so-to-speak destructive construction of this social heterogeneity."

    The Song of Songs | Hermann Sudermann
  • So I did not, so-to-speak, associate with any Russians that might have come or gone through Dallas from 1939 to about 1950.

    Warren Commission (8 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15) | The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy