Etymology

guillemet

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Today it means: Either of the punctuation marks « or » (or ‹ or ›), used in several languages to indicate passages of speech. Similar to typical quotation marks used in the English language, such as “ and ”. Full definition →

French guillemet
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromguillemet
  2. English todayguillemet

From French guillemet, diminutive form of the name Guillaume (“William”), named after French typecutter Guillaume Le Bé (1525–1598) who supposedly invented the marks.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.