so to speak

Speech parts

1. so to speak - Adverb

2. so to speak - Phrase

Meaning

as if it were really so

in a manner of speaking

Source: WordNet

Synonyms

as it were enormous monarchical kind of if you will so to say in a manner of speaking as we say as one might say as if such were so as if it were so

Examples

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I want to make films and write films, which will happen, I'm just taking a different route right now. I'm a bit of a chameleon with the whole entertainment industry so to speak. David Boreanaz

How strange to have failed as a social creature-even criminals do not fail that way-they are the law's "Loyal Opposition," so to speak. But the insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read. F. Scott Fitzgerald

I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman's right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man's right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak. Tony Abbott

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak. Kurt Vonnegut

Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it. Huston Smith

Words in the phrase

so to speak

Close letter words and terms

so there so they say so to say so what so-and-so