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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

proverbiality en · NOUN

Etymology

From proverbial + -ity.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) The state or characteristic of being proverbial.
    • Because other aspects are also seen as contributing to proverbiality—equivocation, authoritativeness, and negotiation of power relations—a text may be proverbial to various degrees. 2005, Rose Marie Beck, “Texts on Textiles: Proverbiality as Characteristic of Equivocal Communication at the East African Coast (Swahili)”, in Journal of African Cultural Studies, volume 17, number 2, page 156:
    • For such a quatrain and couplet as the following it is scarcely hazardous to predict proverbiality:— They eat and drink and scheme and plod And go to church on Sunday; And many are afraid of God And more of Mrs. Grundy. . . . The Cockney met in Middlesex or Surrey Is often cold and always in a hurry. 1874, "English vers de société," The Living Age, vol. 122, no. 1580, p. 718
    • The degree of proverbiality, or currency in oral tradition, attained by these exaggerations is difficult to assess. 1968, Shirley L. Arora, “Spanish Proverbial Exaggerations from California”, in Western Folklore, volume 27, number 4, page 232: