"inverted comma" meaning in All languages combined

See inverted comma on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: inverted commas [plural]
Etymology: From the appearance of an inverted comma. In lead type, an opening quote is not a separate casting. It is the result of rotating a comma 180°, inverting the comma. It is used singly or as double quotes. Similarly, the closing quotation mark is the apostrophe. Also used singly or as double quotes. Head templates: {{en-noun}} inverted comma (plural inverted commas)
  1. (Commonwealth) A type of paired quotation mark: ‘ or “ (beginning the quoted material) and ’ or ” (ending it). Tags: Commonwealth, plural-normally Categories (topical): Dictation, Punctuation marks Synonyms: quotation mark Hypernyms: punctuation Related terms: guillemet, quotation dash
    Sense id: en-inverted_comma-en-noun-ED5QwMpT Categories (other): Commonwealth English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for inverted comma meaning in All languages combined (3.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the appearance of an inverted comma.\nIn lead type, an opening quote is not a separate casting. It is the result of rotating a comma 180°, inverting the comma. It is used singly or as double quotes.\nSimilarly, the closing quotation mark is the apostrophe. Also used singly or as double quotes.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "inverted commas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "inverted comma (plural inverted commas)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Commonwealth English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Dictation",
          "orig": "en:Dictation",
          "parents": [
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Punctuation marks",
          "orig": "en:Punctuation marks",
          "parents": [
            "Letters, symbols, and punctuation",
            "Symbols",
            "Orthography",
            "Writing",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Language",
            "Human",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1789, Frederick II, King of Prussia, Correspondence. Letters between Frederic II. and M. de Voltaire. Translated from the French by Thomas Holcroft. 1789: Vol 8",
          "text": "The paſſage quoted in the text is at the latter part of the following letter, and is put between inverted commas.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1906 July 11, Truth: A Weekly Journal, volume LX, number 1541, London: “Truth” Buildings, […], published 1907, page 88, column 1",
          "text": "Some of the papers, with questionable taste, present Mrs. [Alice Roosevelt] Longworth to their readers as the American “Princess.” There is nothing in her ways, bearing, or appearance to warrant the epithet which I give, as printed, in inverted commas.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 6, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 299",
          "text": "The following paradigm will serve to illustrate what we mean by this term:\n(37) (a) ‘Will I get a degree?ʼ John wondered\n(37) (b) John wondered whether he would get a degree\n(37) (c) John wondered would he get a degree\nThe italicised sequence in (37) (a) is said to be an instance of direct speech: John's exact words are recorded verbatim, and are bounded in the spelling by a question mark and inverted commas; points to note here include the use of the present tense Auxiliary will, the inversion of the Auxiliary, and the use of the first person pronoun I to represent the speaker.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of paired quotation mark: ‘ or “ (beginning the quoted material) and ’ or ” (ending it)."
      ],
      "hypernyms": [
        {
          "word": "punctuation"
        }
      ],
      "id": "en-inverted_comma-en-noun-ED5QwMpT",
      "links": [
        [
          "quotation mark",
          "quotation mark"
        ],
        [
          "‘",
          "‘"
        ],
        [
          "“",
          "“"
        ],
        [
          "’",
          "’"
        ],
        [
          "”",
          "”"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Commonwealth) A type of paired quotation mark: ‘ or “ (beginning the quoted material) and ’ or ” (ending it)."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "guillemet"
        },
        {
          "word": "quotation dash"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "quotation mark"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "inverted comma"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the appearance of an inverted comma.\nIn lead type, an opening quote is not a separate casting. It is the result of rotating a comma 180°, inverting the comma. It is used singly or as double quotes.\nSimilarly, the closing quotation mark is the apostrophe. Also used singly or as double quotes.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "inverted commas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "inverted comma (plural inverted commas)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hypernyms": [
    {
      "word": "punctuation"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "guillemet"
    },
    {
      "word": "quotation dash"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Commonwealth English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Dictation",
        "en:Punctuation marks"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1789, Frederick II, King of Prussia, Correspondence. Letters between Frederic II. and M. de Voltaire. Translated from the French by Thomas Holcroft. 1789: Vol 8",
          "text": "The paſſage quoted in the text is at the latter part of the following letter, and is put between inverted commas.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1906 July 11, Truth: A Weekly Journal, volume LX, number 1541, London: “Truth” Buildings, […], published 1907, page 88, column 1",
          "text": "Some of the papers, with questionable taste, present Mrs. [Alice Roosevelt] Longworth to their readers as the American “Princess.” There is nothing in her ways, bearing, or appearance to warrant the epithet which I give, as printed, in inverted commas.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 6, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 299",
          "text": "The following paradigm will serve to illustrate what we mean by this term:\n(37) (a) ‘Will I get a degree?ʼ John wondered\n(37) (b) John wondered whether he would get a degree\n(37) (c) John wondered would he get a degree\nThe italicised sequence in (37) (a) is said to be an instance of direct speech: John's exact words are recorded verbatim, and are bounded in the spelling by a question mark and inverted commas; points to note here include the use of the present tense Auxiliary will, the inversion of the Auxiliary, and the use of the first person pronoun I to represent the speaker.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of paired quotation mark: ‘ or “ (beginning the quoted material) and ’ or ” (ending it)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "quotation mark",
          "quotation mark"
        ],
        [
          "‘",
          "‘"
        ],
        [
          "“",
          "“"
        ],
        [
          "’",
          "’"
        ],
        [
          "”",
          "”"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Commonwealth) A type of paired quotation mark: ‘ or “ (beginning the quoted material) and ’ or ” (ending it)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "plural-normally"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "quotation mark"
    }
  ],
  "word": "inverted comma"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (ae36afe and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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