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Proverb   /prˈɑvərb/   Listen
noun
Proverb  n.  
1.
An old and common saying; a phrase which is often repeated; especially, a sentence which briefly and forcibly expresses some practical truth, or the result of experience and observation; a maxim; a saw; an adage.
2.
A striking or paradoxical assertion; an obscure saying; an enigma; a parable. "His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb."
3.
A familiar illustration; a subject of contemptuous reference. "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by word, among all nations."
4.
A drama exemplifying a proverb.
Book of Proverbs, a canonical book of the Old Testament, containing a great variety of wise maxims.
Synonyms: Maxim; aphorism; apothegm; adage; saw.



verb
Proverb  v. t.  
1.
To name in, or as, a proverb. (R.) "Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool?"
2.
To provide with a proverb. (R.) "I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase."



Proverb  v. i.  To write or utter proverbs. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books



... the security of chance takes more pains to effect the safety which results from labor. To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: "Leave no ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... with you, ye kine that you do not welcome me? I am difficult of being attained. Why then do you not accept me? It seems, ye creatures of excellent vows, that the popular proverb is true, viz., that it is certain that when one come to another of one's own accord and without being sought, one meets with disregard. The Gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Pisachas, the Uragas, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... what was then the District, and is now the State, of Maine, was a proverb in New England for the poverty of its people, mainly because they were so largely engaged in timber cutting. The great grain-growing, wheat-exporting districts of the Russian empire have a poor and rude people for a like reason. Thus the industry of Massachusetts ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... words represented by the numbered pictures in their order. The initials and finals (reading down the former and continuing down the latter) form a familiar proverb, the sentiment of which is suggested by the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... the paths to Hades," an ancient proverb Tells us, "and one of them thou thyself shalt follow, Doubt not!" My sweetest Sappho, who can doubt it? Tells not each day the old tale? Yet the foreboding word in a youthful bosom Rankles not, as a fisher bred by the seashore, Deafened by use, perceives the breaker's thunder no more. —Strangely, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various


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