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single quotes

American  

plural noun

  1. one pair of single quotation marks, written as (‘ ’) and used especially for a quotation within another quotation.

    He said, “I told you to say ‘Open, sesame’ when you want to enter the mountain.”


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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When these were found, the inner quotes were changed to single quotes for increased clarity.

From Hung Lou Meng, Book II Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books by Joly, H. Bencraft

The following changes have been made to the original text: Page 30: Changed double quotes to single quotes: 'Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,'Page 64: "reader." changed to "reader,"Page 65: "home," changed to "home."

From Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science by Fyfe, J. Hamilton

If the character in single quotes does not look like a pound sign to you, well, at least you know what is intended.

From Reminiscences of Captain Gronow by Gronow, R. H. (Rees Howell)

Page 14: Double quotes inside double quotes amended to single quotes.

From Early Theories of Translation by Amos, Flora Ross

Page 7: Double quotes inside double quotes in Hallam quotation replaced with single quotes.

From Tolstoy on Shakespeare A Critical Essay on Shakespeare by Chertkov, V. G. (Vladimir Grigorevich)

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