ˈso-called, ppl. a.
Also so called and as one word.
1. a. In predicative use (properly without hyphen): Called or designated by that name.
| 1657 Howell Londinop. 304 This Company of the Haberdashers, or Hurrers, of old time so-called. 1696 Phillips, Rubrick, a name given to a Book of the Civil Law, so called because the Heads of the Chapters were written in red Letters. 1753 Challoner Cath. Chr. Instr. 181 The Cluniacenses, so called from their first Abbey of Cluny in France. 1831 Scott Ct. Rob. xix, He would find him at the Philosopher's Gardens, so called, as belonging to the sage Agelastes. 1847 Halliw., Patrick's Purgatory... Its entire history is to be found in Mr. Wright's work so called. 1863 A. C. Ramsay Phys. Geogr. 69 The Coralline Crag, so-called because it contains a large number of corals. |
b. Qualified by properly.
| 1665 J. Glanvill Scepsis Sci. v, The Soul is the sole Percipient, which alone hath animadversion and sense properly so called. 1790 [see properly 2]. 1827 Coleridge Table Talk 24 June, I do not think there is any jealousy, properly so called, in the character of Othello. 1860 Ruskin Mod. Paint. vi. vi. §4 V. 43 A root, properly so called, is a fibre..which secretes certain elements from the earth. |
2. In attributive use (hyphened): Called or designated by this name or term, but not properly entitled to it or correctly described by it. Also loosely or catachr. as a term of abuse.
More recently, and now quite commonly (esp. in technical contexts), used merely to call attention to the description, without implication of incorrectness, as in (b). Cf. Du. zoogenaamd, -genoemd, -gezeid, G. sogenannt.
| (a) 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. ii. i. ii, The Right Side..persists..in considering..all these so-called Decrees as mere temporary whims. 1862 Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (ed. 2) i. §2. 39 The so-called elementary bodies being really compounds of at least two atoms of the true element. 1884 Pennington Wiclif vi. 193 Their so-called poverty is nothing else but a diabolical lie. 1888 O. Wilde in Woman's World I. 134/2 ‘This so-called nineteenth century’—as an impassioned young orator once termed it, after a contemptuous diatribe against the evils of modern civilisation. 1960 C. S. Lewis Studies in Words ix. 226 Rose Macaulay noticed a tendency to prefix ‘so called’ to almost any adjective when it was used of those the speaker hated; the final absurdity being reached when people referred to the Germans as ‘these so-called Germans’. 1980 W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 13 Jan. 6/1 Examples of sneer words are ‘self-proclaimed’, ‘would-be’, ‘purported’ and that Soviet favorite, ‘so-called’. |
| (b) 1886 C. E. Pascoe Lond. of To-day xl. (ed. 3) 341 The leading so-called linendrapers of the metropolis. a 1961 in Webster, s.v., His heavy working schedule did not keep the student out of so-called campus politics. 1962 R. Carson Silent Spring viii. 86 The so-called Dutch elm disease entered the United States from Europe about 1930. 1966 G. Greene Comedians i. ii. 46 New buildings..built for an international exhibition in so-called modern style. 1968 Physics Bull. Nov. 373/1 The socalled Schrödinger representation. 1977 C. Sagan Dragons of Eden ii. 41 Many spinal-cord neurons seem to have about 10,000 synapses, and the so-called Purkinje cells of the cerebellum may have still more. 1979 P. Nihalani et al. Indian & Brit. English i. 164 A number of so-called transformational grammarians are to attend the teachers' conference at Krishnapur next week. |