Quotha

Part of speech: interjection

Definitions

1. Used to show doubt or ridicule about what someone has just said
2. An old-fashioned term employed to question or scoff at a statement
3. A word used sarcastically to challenge or mock the truth of a remark

Etymology: "Quotha" is a fusion of two older words. "Quoth" was the past tense of "quethe," meaning "to say," and in the sense of "said" it survived in English long after most verbs of its kind had vanished. The "a" attached to it is the dialectal and now obsolete word "a," meaning "he," so the whole thing was originally a short phrase meaning "said he." Used alone as an interjection, the result is a sarcastic retort that means something like "so you say," tossed back at a speaker whose claim the listener doubts. A sentence such as "He claims he never once lost his temper, quotha" carries the same sneer as a sceptical raised eyebrow, with the speaker's own words handed back to them as suspect. The shift from a plain reporting phrase to a mocking challenge happened because the attached pronoun made the phrase sound like an old-fashioned tag for repeating someone's statement, and repeating a statement with a sneer is exactly what the interjection does.

Synonyms: indeed, verily, truly