Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Self-styled; so-called.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Calling one's self; self-styled; pretended; would-be.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Self-named; self-styled; pretended; would-be.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Self-styled; self-proclaiming; self-proclaimed.
  • adverb supposedly

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective as claimed by and for yourself often without justification

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French : soi, oneself + disant, saying.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French soi ("self") + disant ("speaking, proclaiming")

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Examples

Comments

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  • Somebody *really* disagrees with the tofu.

    July 19, 2008

  • "You remember, of course," resumed the soi-disant de Worms, pulling his beard and looking out of the window, "that when we broke up rather hurriedly the whole arrangements for the atrocity were left in the private hands of the Marquis and Dr. Bull."

    -The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

    September 30, 2010

  • @BCDreyer just used this on Twitter and I didn't know what it meant.

    https://twitter.com/BCDreyer/status/644183607540625408

    "And New York, the soi-disant center of the civilized universe, is not, by a long shot, off the hook."

    September 16, 2015

  • jennarenn's comment from 2008 is a brilliant aperçu.

    February 28, 2016