Word.ws English Dictionary

with apologies to

with apologies to phrase: a conventional way of attributing credit to somebody whose ideas or works one is adapting or parodying.

Phrase

with apologies to ...

  1. A conventional way of attributing credit to somebody whose ideas or works one is adapting or parodying.
    • With apologies to Jonathan Swift, May I make a “modest proposal?”2000, Howard Noel, I'm the Other Man in My Own Marriage!, page 122
    • Losing one's hearing suggests carelessness at best (with apologies to Oscar Wilde) and damnation at worst (in the biblical sense).2016, Anthony Hogan, Rebecca Phillips, Hearing Impairment and Hearing Disability, page 5

Questions about with apologies to

What does with apologies to mean?
With apologies to means a conventional way of attributing credit to somebody whose ideas or works one is adapting or parodying.
What part of speech is with apologies to?
With apologies to is a phrase.

Words near with apologies to in the dictionary

  1. with all one's might
  2. with all the salt in the Dead Sea
  3. with an eye to
  4. with an eye towards
  5. with any luck
  6. with apologies to
  7. with arms wide open
  8. with bad grace
  9. with baited breath
  10. with bated breath
  11. with bells on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: with apologies to (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “with apologies to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/with_apologies_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.