speech marks
Quote enclosing punctuation
Speech marks are quotation marks—the punctuation used to set off direct speech or quoted material.
The term is more common in British English, where American speakers typically say quotation marks or quotes: The teacher reminded students to put speech marks around dialogue.
- air quotesGestured skeptical punctuation
- quote unquoteVerbal air quotes
- scare quotePunctuation signaling irony or doubt
- direct quotationExact reproduction of speech
- punctuationWritten clarity symbols
dialogue · apostrophe · double quotes · writing · block quote · bunny ears · colon · spoken · spoken word · said · excerpt · conversation · definition · phrase · typewriter · express · written word · cited
- dialogueconversation, line, lines, banter, talk
- Quotingdouble quotes, single quotes, direct quote, closing quote, curly quotes
punctuation function
speech marksparentheses
Curved enclosing punctuation marks
brackets · square brackets · braces · round brackets · em dashes
mark, speech, marks, speechless, markedly, unspeakable, speeches, speechlessness, speechify