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/prəvˈərbiəl/ Listen

Proverbial

adjective

Of or relating to or resembling or expressed in a proverb. "The proverbial grasshopper"

Widely known and spoken of. "The proverbial absentminded professor" , "Your proverbial dizzy blonde"

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Etymology of 'Proverbial'

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"Proverbial" Quotes from Famous Books

... race problem in the United States." A sociological study which within its first four pages makes this assertion must gain the reader's attention and interest at the start. That there is no solution to the race problem is a statement heard so often in America that it has become almost proverbial; that the solution is simple if our citizens would approach the problem fairly is an observation made less often; but that there is no problem would seem to be either the flippant remark of one who dabbles in sociology or the profound utterance ...

— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... bound to be an inordinate amount of chaff mixed with the grain, and he used no winnowing machine. His simplicity and transparent honesty induced him to include everything, in fact he seemed to glory in the number of false trails he laboriously followed. He was one who might be expected to find the proverbial "needle in a haystack," but unfortunately the needle was not always there. Delambre says, "Ardent, restless, burning to distinguish himself by his discoveries he attempted everything, and having once obtained a glimpse of one, no labour was too hard ...

— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... from Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawin). Ash'ab (ob. A.H. 54), a Medinite servant of Caliph Osman, was proverbial for greed and sanguine, Micawber-like expectation of "windfalls." The Scholiast Al-Sharishi (of Xeres) describes him in Theophrastic style. He never saw a man put hand to pocket without expecting a present, or a funeral go by without ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... Despite their proverbial control of muscle, these Indians could not conceal their astonishment at hearing so much of their affairs thus laid bare, so they said that the Pale-face chief was wise, that he must be a great medicine-man, and that what he said was all true except about ...

— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... far, have brought me to the end of my first year at the Academy, and now we come to the events of the second. In June of 1871, the proverbial silver lining, which the darkest cloud is said to have, began to shine very faintly in the West Point firmament, and I thought that at last the darkness of my cadet life was to be dispelled by the appearance above ...

— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

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