so to speak

• so to say

so to speak

1. In a manner of speaking.

   Synonyms: as it were, in a manner of speaking, if you will

   • 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter IV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 42:

     Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to “get his verses.”

   • 1898 September, Joseph Conrad, “Youth: a Narrative”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXIV, number DCCCCXCV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publication Co., page 309:

     This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

   • 1906 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “A Cosmopolite in a Café”, in The Four Million, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co, →OCLC, page 27:

     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.

   • 1991, Ted Tally, The Silence of the Lambs (motion picture), spoken by Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald):

     I don't believe Lecter's even seen a woman in eight years. And oh, are you ever his taste. So to speak.

   • 2011 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.

• Often used to indicate a metaphor or a pun.