quotation marks

Cultural  

1. Punctuation marks (“ ”) that set off dialogue, quoted material, titles of short works, and definitions. When something must be quoted inside a quotation, single quotation marks are used: “‘Religion,’ according to Karl Marx (see also Marx), ‘is the opiate of the masses.’”

---

Example Sentences

At least one copy included peculiar quotation marks in the opening paragraphs.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

Technically, this is not “Wuthering Heights,” but “Wuthering Heights” in the self-referential quotation marks on the poster, an acknowledgment that Fennell has plunged her fingers into the plot and manipulated it to her whims.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 11, 2026

James Joyce’s "Ulysses" rained em dashes on winding sentences that he had already stripped of quotation marks, resulting in prose so unruly that numerous reading groups are devoted specifically to parsing it.

From Salon • Jun. 11, 2025

At the same time, academic conventions require that scholars attribute others’ ideas or prose via citation or quotation marks.

From Slate • Jan. 19, 2024

If only part of the quotation is in parentheses, then the closing parenthesis goes inside the quotation marks.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner