How to pronounce“proverb”in English
All Video Occurrences for “proverb” (50)
Click any clip to jumpListen to native speakers pronounce “proverb” in real conversational contexts with synchronized timestamps and subtitles.
Definitions of “proverb”
A commonly used sentence expressing popular wisdom.
“Near-synonyms: aphorism, maxim, adage, saw, saying, apothegm, byword, paroemia, sententia (Latin)”
Any commonly used turn of phrase expressing a metaphor, simile, or descriptive epithet.
“The definition of a proverb is no simple matter and has occupied scholars from Ancient Greece until the present day. Lord John Russell defined the proverb as ‘the wisdom of many and the wit of one’. The celebrated Spanish writer Cervantes said that a proverb is ‘a short sentence drawn from long experience’. Generally it is accepted that a proverb is a short, pithy traditional saying, which contains some widely accepted knowledge, or which offers advice or presents a moral. This present volume also contains many phrases and sayings which are not strictly proverbs as we use the term today, although we may still think of them as such. This situation arises because, prior to the eighteenth century it was common for the term to include metaphors, similes, and descriptive epithets. […] The essence of a proverb lies in it being a ‘traditional saying’ i.e. something which has commonly passed from one generation to another by word of mouth. […] In his book On the Lessons in Proverbs (1852), Richard Chevenix Trenchard says that there is one quality of the proverb which is the most essential of all: "… popularity, acceptance and adoption on the part of the people. Without this popularity, without these suffrages and this consent of the many, no saying, however seasoned with salt, however worthy on all these accounts to have become a proverb, however fulfilling all other its conditions, can yet be esteemed as such."”
To write or utter proverbs.
To name in, or as, a proverb.
“Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool / In every street, do they not say, "How well / Are come upon him his deserts?"”
Explore Similar Words
Looking for pronunciations related to ‘proverb’? Explore native video clips for similar terms and variations: