Proverbiality

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state or characteristic of being proverbial. uncountable

    "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."

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

From proverbial + -ity.

More for "proverbiality"

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.