Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of a pair of punctuation marks («) or (») used in some languages, such as French and Russian, to mark the beginning and end of a quotation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A quotation-mark.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare A quotation mark.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Either of the punctuation marks « or », used in several languages to indicate passages of speech. Similar to typical quotation marks used in the English language such as and .

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, diminutive of Guillaume, William (the name of its supposed inventor).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French guillemet, diminutive form of the name Guillaume ("William"), after the French typecutter Guillaume Le Bé (1525–1598) who supposedly invented the marks.

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Examples

  • Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style says the word "guillemet" honors the the sixteenth-century typecutter Guillaume le Bé. octothorpe: #

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • Dire que j'me suis '' '' 'vite' '' '' levé (oui j'mets pleind e guillemet parce que j'peux pas m'lever vite etant donné que j'fais des paralysie du sommeil) Mais si j'avais pu je l'aurais fait ...

    pinku-tk Diary Entry pinku-tk 2005

  • Heureusement (grosse guillemet) aurelien et son pote alex m'ont soutenu dans cette dure epreuve a renfort de foutage de gueule pendant les essayage!

    pinku-tk Diary Entry pinku-tk 2005

Comments

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  • « quotation marks » (French) or »quotation« (German, Slovene and many other languages)

    December 2, 2007