so-called

English

Etymology

From so +‎ called.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sōʹkôld', IPA^(key): /ˈsəʊˌkɔːld/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsoʊˌkɔld/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

so-called (not comparable)

1. So named; commonly called.

   the so-called Ising mode

   • 1988, Ingrid Coetzee, Gerhard-Mark Van der Waal, Conservation of Culture: Changing Context and Challenges:

     Another Canadian example is that of the so-called Halfback Program initiated in the province of Ontario. With this scheme state lottery tickets with which no prizes are won retain 50% of the value of their initial cost […]

   • 2010, Matty McEire, Looking for Sheville, Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 78:

     ... I hadn't met any straight women at the gay bars — a few so called "fag hags" fraternizing with the boys, of course, but ...

   • 2025 February 4, Katie Bo Lillis and Kaitlan Collins, “CIA sends ‘buyout’ offers to entire workforce”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday became the first major national security agency to offer so-called buyouts to its entire workforce, a CIA spokesperson and two other sources familiar with the offer said, part of President Donald Trump’s broad effort to shrink the federal government and shape it to his agenda.

2. (ironic) commonly called by such a name, but false or unfitting.

   These so-called "assistants" are making our jobs harder, not easier!

   • 1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 5:

     […] dawdling away the hours in the Park as if all the world and its millions of honest hard workers were created solely for the casual diversion of the so-called 'upper' classes, […]

Derived terms

• so-called dollar

Translations

so named

• Arabic: مَا يُسَمَّى (mā yusammā)
• Armenian: այսպես կոչված (ayspes kočʻvac)
• Azerbaijani: adlanan
• Belarusian: так зва́ны (tak zvány), т.з. (t.z.)
• Bulgarian: така́ наре́чен (taká naréčen)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 所謂 / 所谓 (zh) (suǒwèi)

• Czech: takzvaný (cs)
• Danish: såkaldt
• Dutch: zogenaamd (nl), zgn. (nl), zogeheten (nl), zogenoemd (nl)
• Finnish: niin sanottu (fi), niin kutsuttu (fi)
• French: dénommé (fr)
• German: sogenannt (de)
• Greek: αποκαλούμενος (apokaloúmenos), λεγόμενος (el) (legómenos)
• Hebrew: נקרא כך (nikrá kakh), שנקרא כך (shenikrá kakh), כך נקרא (kakh nikrá)
• Hungarian: úgynevezett (hu)
• Italian: cosiddetto (it)
• Japanese: 所謂 (ja) (いわゆ​る, iwayuru)
• Korean: 소위(所謂) (ko) (sowi), 이른바 (ko) (ireunba)
• Latin: nuncupativus
• Macedonian: таканаречен (takanarečen)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: såkalt

• Pannonian Rusyn: такволани (takvolani)
• Persian: به اصطلاح
• Polish: tak zwany (pl), tzw. (pl)
• Portuguese: dito (pt) m, chamado (pt) m
• Romanian: așa-numit, așa-zis
• Russian: так называ́емый (ru) (tak nazyvájemyj), т.н. (t.n.)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: тако̀зва̄нӣ

  Roman: takòzvānī (sh)

• Slovak: takzvaný
• Slovene: tako imenovan
• Spanish: denominado (es), (ansí) llamado
• Swedish: så kallad (sv)
• Tibetan: ཟེར་བའི (zer ba'i), གྲག་པའི (grag pa'i) (colloquial), ཅེས་ཟེར་བ (ces zer ba), ཅེས་བྱ་བ (ces bya ba), ཞེས་བྱ་བ (zhes bya ba), ཅེས་བྱ་ཞིང (ces bya zhing), ཅེས་བྱ་སྟེ (ces bya ste) (literary)
• Ukrainian: так зва́ний (tak zványj), т.з. (t.z.)

so named, but wrongly so

• Albanian: ashtuquajtur (sq)
• Armenian: այսպես կոչված (ayspes kočʻvac)
• Azerbaijani: dırnaqarası
• Belarusian: так зва́ны (tak zvány), т.з. (t.z.)
• Bulgarian: така́ наре́чен (taká naréčen)
• Catalan: anomenat (ca), dit (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 所謂嘅 / 所谓嘅 (so² wai⁶ ge³)

  Mandarin: 所謂 / 所谓 (zh) (suǒwèi)

• Czech: takzvaný (cs)
• Danish: såkaldt
• Dutch: zogenaamd (nl), zgn. (nl)
• Estonian: nõndanimetatud
• Finnish: muka (fi), niin sanottu (fi), niin kutsuttu (fi)
• French: soi-disant (fr), prétendu (fr)
• German: sogenannt (de), sog. (de)
• Greek: αποκαλούμενος (apokaloúmenos), λεγόμενος (el) (legómenos), δήθεν (el) (díthen)

  Ancient: λεγόμενος (legómenos), οὕτω καλούμενος (hoútō kaloúmenos), οὕτω ὀνομαζόμενος (hoútō onomazómenos)

• Hebrew: כביכול (he) (kiv’yakhól, k’vayaklhól) used as a conjunctive adverb, not an adjective
• Hindi: कहने को (kahne ko), बोलने को (bolne ko)
• Hungarian: úgynevezett (hu)
• Italian: cosiddetto (it)
• Japanese: 所謂 (ja) (いわゆ​る, iwayuru)
• Korean: 소위(所謂) (ko) (sowi), 이른바 (ko) (ireunba)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: såkalt

• Persian: کذایی (fa) (kazâyi), به اصطلاح
• Polish: tak zwany (pl), tzw. (pl)
• Portuguese: assim chamado, chamado (pt), dito (pt), suposto (pt)
• Romanian: așa-zis
• Russian: так называ́емый (ru) (tak nazyvájemyj), т.н. (t.n.)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: тако̀зва̄нӣ

  Roman: takòzvānī (sh)

• Sindhi: نام نهاد
• Slovene: tako imenovan
• Spanish: supuesto (es), presunto (es), dizque (es)
• Swedish: så kallad (sv)
• Tibetan: ཟེར་བའི (zer ba'i), གྲག་པའི (grag pa'i) (colloquial), ཅེས་ཟེར་བ (ces zer ba), ཅེས་བྱ་བ (ces bya ba), ཞེས་བྱ་བ (zhes bya ba), ཅེས་བྱ་ཞིང (ces bya zhing), ཅེས་བྱ་སྟེ (ces bya ste) (literary)
• Turkish: sözde (tr)
• Ukrainian: так зва́ний (tak zványj), т.з. (t.z.)
• Vietnamese: cái gọi là
• Yiddish: אַזוי גערופֿן (azoy gerufn)

Further reading

• “so-called”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• So-Called. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved on 6 June 2016.