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 place that term in quotation marks since, as many people have said and continue to say, the version of “debate” that Kirk popularized is a wrestling match in a mud pit of logical fallacies.

From Salon • Oct. 22, 2025

The tweets are written in all caps and are smattered with random old-guy quotation marks, parentheticals, and pejorative nicknames.

From Slate • Aug. 26, 2025

To stop being a “foster child,” the quotation marks dragging the phrase down, almost drowning it.

From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson