so to speak

Idioms and Phrases

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 .

Example Sentences

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

From Project Gutenberg

So I did not, so-to-speak, associate with any Russians that might have come or gone through Dallas from 1939 to about 1950.

From Project Gutenberg