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English
Etymology
From proverbial + -ity.
Noun
proverbiality (uncountable)
- 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”, in Western Folklore, volume 27, number 4, page 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)”, in Journal of African Cultural Studies, volume 17, number 2, page 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.