so to speak

so to speak

English

Alternative forms

• so to say

Adverb

so to speak

1. In a manner of speaking.
   • 1876, Mark Twain, chapter 4, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

     Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work.

   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, Youth:

     This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak.

   • 1903, O. Henry, “A Cosmopolitan in a Cafe”, in The Four Million:

     He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d'hôte grape fruit.

   • 2019 May 5, James Barron; Colin Moynihan, “Obama Visits Firehouse in Midtown Manhattan”, in New York Times‎, retrieved 2011 November 24:

     For Firefighter Joseph Ceravolo, President Obama turned up the heat, so to speak, even before he sat down to an early lunch on Thursday.

Usage notes

Often used to indicate a metaphor or a pun.

Synonyms

• as it were
• in a manner of speaking

Translations

in a manner of speaking

Afrikaans: as't ware Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Czech: jakoby (cs), takříkajíc Dutch: als het ware Esperanto: por tiel diri, kvazaŭ (eo) Finnish: niin sanotusti (fi) French: pour ainsi dire (fr), d'une certaine façon, en quelque sorte (fr) Georgian: ასე თუ ისე (ase tu ise) German: sozusagen (de), in gewisser Weise, gleichsam (de), gewissermaßen (de) Hebrew: כִּבְיָכוֹל‎ (he) (kiḇyå̄ḵōl) Hungarian: úgyszólván Ido: quaze (io) Italian: in un certo senso, per così dire, in qualche modo, in qualche maniera Japanese: 丸で, まるで (marude), 言わば (いわば, iwaba) Kurdish: hema bêje (ku), hema hema (ku)

Latin: tamquam, tanquam Macedonian: така да се каже (táka da se káže), така да се рече (táka da se réče) Malayalam: എന്നവാച്ചാൽ (ennavāccāl), അങ്ങനെയെങ്കിൽ (aṅṅaneyeṅkil) Norwegian: mer eller mindre (no) Bokmål: så å si Polish: jakby (pl), w pewnym sensie Portuguese: por assim dizer, de certa forma, digamos assim Russian: так сказа́ть (tak skazátʹ) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: такорѐћи Roman: takorèći (sh) Spanish: por así decirlo, como quien dice, para entendernos, se entiende Swedish: så att säga (sv) Turkish: please add this translation if you can Ukrainian: так би мовити (tak by móvyty)