scare quotes

American  

plural noun

1. a pair of quotation marks used around a term or phrase to indicate that the writer does not think it is being used appropriately or that the writer is using it in a specialized sense.

   a “huge breakthrough” in the negotiations.

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scare quotes British  

plural noun

1. quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it should not be taken literally or automatically accepted as true

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Etymology

Origin of scare quotes

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

The experiment doesn’t entirely come off; for the most part, Larraín and his co-writer, Guillermo Calderón, traffic in a smirkily theoretical kind of horror, trapping real tension in scare quotes.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 7, 2023

Jackie is now a manifestation of Shauna’s guilt and the two “talk” frequently — scare quotes necessary — a fact that rightly weirds out her teammates.

From New York Times • Mar. 24, 2023

As you can probably tell from the unnecessary scare quotes in the previous sentence, I don’t like it.

From The Verge • Oct. 13, 2021

Beethoven, in and out of scare quotes, has become a godlike abstraction of himself, complete with one-word moniker — his music less a product of culture than a feature of nature.

From Washington Post • Dec. 23, 2020

For instance, when Scalia dissented from the Supreme Court’s first ruling in favor of gay rights, he put the word “orientation” in scare quotes, speaking only of “homosexual ‘orientation.’

From Slate • Oct. 13, 2020