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proverb
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proverb as in:  the well-known proverb

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  • "It takes a village to raise a child," goes the African proverb.
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom
  • In the opinion of Hans Junior, his father was part of an old, decrepit Germany—one that allowed everyone else to take it for the proverbial ride while its own people suffered.   (source)
    proverbial = of a well-known metaphor or proverb
  • I fear it like the proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark.   (source)
  • Proverbs 11:2. (When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but with humility comes wisdom.)   (source)
    proverbs = a work of wisdom literature found in both the Christian and Hebrew Bibles
  • The boy remembered an old proverb from his country. It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.   (source)
    proverb = a well-known short saying expressing wisdom
  • Like those proverbial bookish men who could not even tell types of grains apart, they do not labor with their hands, and know nothing practical.   (source)
    proverbial = of a well-known metaphor or proverb
  • Some scales aren't that amenable to the proverbial thumb.   (source)
  • Oh God, you're not going to have some Indian Sanskrit proverb or something, are you?   (source)
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom
  • Marie-Laure's great-uncle, locked with several hundred others inside the gates of Fort National, a quarter mile offshore, squints up and thinks, Locusts, and an Old Testament proverb comes back to him from some cobwebbed hour of parish school: The locusts have no king, yet all of them go out in ranks.   (source)
  • Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.   (source)
    proverbs = well-known, short sayings that are thought to communicate wisdom
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show 88 more with this conextual meaning
  • She'll just give me one of her blank looks and rattle off a proverb from The Book of Shhh.   (source)
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom (from a fictitious book of this novel)
  • Kitsey had apologized more than once for Em's 'brusqueness' but this, in Hobie's phrase, took the proverbial cake.   (source)
    proverbial = of a well-known metaphor or proverb
  • I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb "The apple never falls far from the tree."   (source)
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom
  • This summer school—Dan's lifeline—had been the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel all school year long.   (source)
    proverbial = of a well-known metaphor or proverb
  • "You educate a boy, and you're educating an individual," Greg says, quoting an African proverb.   (source)
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom
  • The sea was the proverbial "breadbasket" of her people, provider of prawns and fish.   (source)
    proverbial = of a well-known metaphor or proverb
  • I was worried that he might be falling over the proverbial edge.   (source)
  • I took a long pull and savored the fact I survived, another bite out of the proverbial elephant.   (source)
  • The angel is like the proverbial gold mine and they the lucky miners.   (source)
  • In other words, we're caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.   (source)
  • "But every one belongs to every one else," he concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb.   (source)
    proverb = a well-known, short saying that is thought to communicate wisdom
  • The proverb you need to go by is 'Look before you leap'—especially into spare-room beds.   (source)
    proverb = relating to a common saying of the time ("We must eat a peck of dirt before we die")
  • A fist is more than the sum of its fingers, says the King, quoting an archaic proverb.†   (source)
  • But, like all buffalo, he eventually grew big and turned into the proverbial bull in the china shop.†   (source)
  • And now, you've come along-the proverbial last straw.†   (source)
  • It was a proverb Old Nan had taught him as a boy.†   (source)
  • —CHINESE PROVERB By the time you read this, I hope to be dead.†   (source)
  • Other times I'd be sitting beside her on the couch, looking at the Bible and watching Jamie out of the corner of my eye at the same time, and we'd come across a passage or a psalm, maybe even a proverb, and I'd ask her what she thought about it.†   (source)
  • She liked to quote well-worn proverbs and wise sayings whenever she had the chance to teach one of her many children or grandchildren.†   (source)
  • The historian David Arkush once compared Russian and Chinese peasant proverbs, and the differences are striking.†   (source)
  • The proverbs say 'He who harps on a matter alienates his friend.'†   (source)
  • There were a couple of possibilities: one, the helmet was malfunctioning; two, this troll was deaf as the proverbial post.†   (source)
  • An old proverb recurred to her: God looks after drunks and little children.†   (source)
  • —Arab proverb Dustfinger was hiding behind a chestnut tree when Meggie ran past him.†   (source)
  • And randy as the proverbial goat.†   (source)
  • Most of the clubs' fighters consisted of blacks or Latinos, boxing for us being the proverbial way out.†   (source)
  • Oh, like in Proverbs, where wisdom is pictured as a woman calling out in the streets, trying to find anyone who'll listen to her?†   (source)
  • But in a home setting, those same qualities also meant they could be like the proverbial bull in the china closet.†   (source)
  • "Lucky" is a strange word to use to describe my situation, but a part of me does feel fortunate that I didn't get hit by the proverbial bus.†   (source)
  • They have a proverb that says a lot: I against my brothers; my brothers and I against my cousins; my brothers, my cousins, and I against the world.†   (source)
  • We drive to a store in Santa Monica and Nathaniel riffles through the stock for more than an hour, the proverbial kid in a candy store.†   (source)
  • Death was proverbial with him, the thief in the night about which all his goodness or courage could do nothing.†   (source)
  • "You're the proverbial diamond in the rough," she'd said to him once, touching his nose lightly with the tip of her electrifying finger.†   (source)
  • Now I opened it and began to read in Proverbs.†   (source)
  • He still had a long way to go, but there was definitely a light appearing at the end of the proverbial tunnel.†   (source)
  • Oh, is that a proverb in Russia, too?†   (source)
  • Think you carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: "Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere.†   (source)
  • I had thought of all these possibilities and more, but never that of Rosa's death, despite my proverbial pessimism, which always leads me to expect the worst.†   (source)
  • PROVERBS 4: 16-17 I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.†   (source)
  • But I am also reminded of Proverbs twenty-three, verse twenty-four.†   (source)
  • I was the proverbially overprepared student; I had to have a standby writing utensil.†   (source)
  • Is this a proverb or a maxim?†   (source)
  • In Mqhekezweni, I felt not unlike the proverbial country boy who comes to the big city.†   (source)
  • The attempt to establish insanity as a defense because of serious injuries in accidents years before, and headaches and occasional fainting spells of Hickock, was like grasping at the proverbial straw.†   (source)
  • "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today," he said to Blackberry, quoting a rabbit proverb.†   (source)
  • Like the proverbial butterfly that flaps its wings on one continent and eventually causes a hurricane on another, Norma McCorvey dramatically altered the course of events without intending to.†   (source)
  • "He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife," Cedric recalls Long commanding, quoting Proverbs 28:24, "but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat."†   (source)
  • It is a patriotic song that can also be read as a proverb, as a personal credo for endurance.†   (source)
  • First, all the sugar must be chewed out of Mexican gum, then the bartender gives a few slips of paper to the aspirant, who writes either a proverb or a sentimental remark on the strip.†   (source)
  • "Go to sleep or Max McDaniels will get you!" said Nix, intoning it as though it was a proverb.†   (source)
  • The proverb appeared to describe the location of Morne Michel, the most distant of all the settlements in Zanmi Lasante's catchment area.†   (source)
  • A virgin audience like Colonel Scheisskopf was grist for General Peckem's mill, a stimulating opportunity to throw open his whole dazzling erudite treasure house of puns, wisecracks, slanders, homilies, anecdotes, proverbs, epigrams, apophthegms, bon mots and other pungent sayings.†   (source)
  • —Persian proverb IN PAKISTAN'S KARAKORAM, bristling across an area barely one hundred miles wide, more than sixty of the world's tallest mountains lord their severe alpine beauty over a witnessless high-altitude wilderness.†   (source)
  • America was purring down the proverbial highway like a well-oiled truck.†   (source)
  • I think the point is that those things are tiny and deadly and can find the proverbial needle in the biogenetically modified haystack.†   (source)
  • I was a son to my father ...And he taught me and said to me, "Let your heart hold fast my words..." —PROVERBS†   (source)
  • This place gives me the proverbial creeps.†   (source)
  • He is inundated with Howardisms suddenly; all true, those old and wrinkled maxims, proverbs, clichés.†   (source)
  • My grandma says that's a good thing because there's a Proverb that says something like "even a total fool can appear wise if she keeps her mouth shut."†   (source)
  • There is an old Indian proverb which has inspired me in the work of my adult life.†   (source)
  • Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel," Padre Esteban said quoting Proverbs 27:9 (KJV), as he methodically rubbed the oil into the glove and worked the leather as if he were kneading a ball of dough.†   (source)
  • There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India.†   (source)
  • My mother, equally big on little proverbs, often said, oh, what a tangled web we weave, a little lie will lead to a big one; a child who cheats in school will grow up to steal.†   (source)
  • A FRIEND LOVES AT ALL TIMES, AND A BROTHER IS BORN FOR A TIME OF ADVERSITY.—PROVERBS 17:17†   (source)
  • (Thumbing hastily) Proverbs, wasn't it†   (source)
  • The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.†   (source)
  • I was the proverbial five minutes ahead of the posse, but I was sure I could take advantage of it and escape.†   (source)
  • They have an ancient proverb reading Women and Cats.†   (source)
  • The prosperity of its merchants and the fabulous fertility of its soil were proverbial.†   (source)
  • It's been rainin' since dark, but you don't ever know a thing like that— it's proverbial.†   (source)
  • Then the house was suddenly full of relatives, friends, hysteria, and confusion and I quickly left my mother and the children to the care of those impressive women, who, inNegro communities at least, automatically appear at times of bereavement armed with lotions, proverbs, and patience, and an ability to cook.†   (source)
  • Here that is not a proverb to be spoken aloud.†   (source)
  • Old Nan always said, and of late the messenger ravens had been proving the truth of the proverb.†   (source)
  • "I f God does not bring it, the earth will not give it" is a typical Russian proverb.†   (source)
  • —CHINESE PROVERB Sterling isn't the inner city.†   (source)
  • The dead from the dead, as the old proverb has it; only a corpse may speak.†   (source)
  • That's a proverb Reverend Justus probably hasn't encountered yet.†   (source)
  • That's either a very old or very new Chinese proverb, I don't know which.'†   (source)
  • I remembered a wise, beautiful African proverb: "It takes a whole village to raise a good child."†   (source)
  • "The rocks in the water don't know how the rocks in the sun feel," said a Haitian proverb.†   (source)
  • There's an old proverb, Larry," the reverend said.†   (source)
  • "Our children's children will hear a good story," answered Hazel, quoting a rabbit proverb.†   (source)
  • The rabbits' proverb is better expressed.†   (source)
  • That period confirmed the ancient proverb, "Man is a wolf to man."†   (source)
  • The proverb says revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but Ronson Fast-Lite had yet to be invented when they made that one up.†   (source)
  • And to reveal what is truly valuable in life, my aunt Fatimeh always uses the Shushtari proverb "Any gift from a true friend is valuable, even if it's a hollow walnut shell."†   (source)
  • She had quoted a Bene Gesserit proverb to him: "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way.†   (source)
  • What the proverb means is that if you do something in a hurry, without thinking about it, then when you do stop and think, you'll regret it.†   (source)
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Proverbs as in:  from The Book of Proverbs

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  • My grandmother often quoted from Proverbs to teach us about the importance of kindness and humility.
  • Proverbs—eleven, isn't it?   (source)
  • "I would suggest Proverbs, 24th Chapter, 21st verse," said the old minister, with a canny gleam in his eye which Kit understood as John began to read.   (source)
  • PROVERBS 29:18.   (source)
  • Proverbs cautions that the sayings of the wise are 'riddles,' while Corinthians talks of 'hidden wisdom.'   (source)
    proverbs = a work of wisdom literature found in both the Old Testament of the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Bible
  • They based this new rule on the admonition found in Proverbs 27:2: Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.   (source)
    proverbs = a work of wisdom literature found in both the Christian and Hebrew Bibles
  • "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding," Kelley replied, quoting Proverbs 3:5-6.   (source)
  • As it says in Proverbs 22:6 (KJV): "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it."   (source)
  • Abby had not specified a Bible reading, but Reverend Alban provided one anyhow—a long passage from Proverbs about a virtuous woman.   (source)
    proverbs = a work of wisdom literature found in both the Old Testament of the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Bible
  • As we ate breakfast together as a family, we would read through Psalms and Proverbs.   (source)
    proverbs = a work of wisdom literature found in both the Christian and Hebrew Bibles
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  • Dark sayings, Langdon mused, knowing this strange phrase made numerous odd appearances in Proverbs as well as in Psalm 78.   (source)
  • Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips. ——PROVERBS 27:2   (source)
  • It certainly fit within the framework of the admonition of Proverbs 27:2 to "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips."   (source)
  • Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. ——PROVERBS 3:5-6   (source)
  • Larry sent his son off with Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."   (source)
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show 4 more examples with any meaning
  • I've kept that practice as a daily habit and especially enjoy the book of Proverbs.†   (source)
  • Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.— Proverbs 22:6†   (source)
  • (BROWN turns) Remember the wisdom of Solomon in the Book of Proverbs—(Softly) "He that troubleth his own house ....shall inherit the wind.†   (source)
  • You don't know what it is to want spiritual tobacco—bad emendations of old texts, or small items about a variety of Aphis Brassicae, with the well-known signature of Philomicron, for the 'Twaddler's Magazine;' or a learned treatise on the entomology of the Pentateuch, including all the insects not mentioned, but probably met with by the Israelites in their passage through the desert; with a monograph on the Ant, as treated by Solomon, showing the harmony of the Book of Proverbs with the results of modern research.†   (source)
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