quotes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of quote.

   The brochure interleaves customer quotes with photographs of the product.

   Several quotes in the manuscript lacked proper attribution.

   Note

   One plural stands in for four singulars: words someone said, a quotation mark, a priced estimate for a job, and the price offered for a security or commodity. Context sorts them. Customer quotes in a brochure are words, three quotes for a new roof are prices, and quotes on a stock are figures. Each has quotation as its fuller equivalent. The same spelling also serves as the verb form.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Punctuation marks used to set off a direct quotation, a spoken line, or a word being singled out.

   The editor asked her to close the quotes after the final word of the speech.

   He wrapped the slang term in quotes to signal he was using it loosely.

   Note

   Most often met in the phrase in quotes: put a statement in quotes, a term in quotes. The plural names the opening and closing marks together, which is why a single quoted phrase sits in quotes rather than in a quote. Quotation marks is the fuller name, and it is the safer choice when quotes alone could be read as the quoted words themselves.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of quote.

   The biography quotes letters that historians had never published.

   Whenever the columnist quotes a rival, she names her source carefully.

   Note

   The -s form follows he, she, it or a singular noun, and it serves every meaning of the verb: a biography quotes letters, a contractor quotes a price for a job, a broker quotes a share price. Nearly all of these take a direct object. The exception is the speaker's signal that a quotation is starting, which needs none. An archaic meaning, "to observe or take account of," appears only in older texts.

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