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.’”

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Example Sentences

The concept of being picky was born, though it was still so new a word that food marketers put it in quotation marks.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 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

I didn’t put that in quotation marks because Chomsky apparently never said it.

From Salon • Oct. 29, 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