Definition of "so to speak" []

• In a manner of speaking. (adverb)

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• "They all seem to have fallen in love with her, so to speak the young English girls as much as the impressionable art-critic: and the new human interest in her Alpine tragedy relieved, as such interests do, the painfulness of the circumstances through which they had been passing."
• "It was nothing new for Inspector Maigret to have people crashing in like this — out of the blue, so to speak — into his life, and monopolizing it for days, weeks, or even months on end; only to relapse once more into the common herd of nondescripts."
• "It was a dilemma for me: I had no desire to antagonise Gul Shah, but I could not afford to refuse Sher Afzul's hospitality, so to speak — also the hospitality was very warm and naked, and was lying across my lap, gasping still from the exertion of her dance, and causing me considerable excitement."