proverbiality

proverbiality

English

Etymology

proverbial +‎ -ity

Noun

proverbiality (uncountable)

1. The state or characteristic of being proverbial.
   • 1874, "English vers de société," The Living Age, vol. 122, no. 1580, p. 718:

     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.

   • 1968, Shirley L. Arora, "Spanish Proverbial Exaggerations from California," Western Folklore, vol. 27, no. 4, p. 232:

     The degree of proverbiality, or currency in oral tradition, attained by these exaggerations is difficult to assess.

   • 2005, Rose Marie Beck, "Texts on Textiles: Proverbiality as Characteristic of Equivocal Communication at the East African Coast (Swahili)," Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 156:

     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.

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.