ppl. a. Also so called.
1. 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. Robt., 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. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., v. 20. 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.
Rarely used 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. A. R. Pennington, Wiclif, vi. 193. Their so-called poverty is nothing else but a diabolical lie.
(b) 1886. C. E. Pascoe, Lond. of To-day, xl. (ed. 3), 341. The leading so-called linendrapers of the metropolis.
