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 severallanguages to indicatepassages ofspeech . Similar to typicalquotation 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
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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
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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
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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
rolig commented on the word guillemet
« quotation marks » (French) or »quotation« (German, Slovene and many other languages)
December 2, 2007