Jackie-- Scare quotes are quotation marks bracketing a word that calls attention to the word's being used in some rhetorical manner. Related to "air quotes", where the speakers crooks her/his fingers in the air while saying the word. Earlier examples, are "quote", "unquote", being used to wrap the word, phrase, or sentence.

You're not really quoting anybody when you type: My good "friend" Joe Bodaracco came to see me yesterday. Compare that with the un-scare-quoted version. Nice writeup here thanks to Google:

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/local/doc/punctuation/node31.html