PROVERBIAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does proverbial mean? 

• PROVERBIAL (adjective)
  The adjective PROVERBIAL has 2 senses:

1. of or relating to or resembling or expressed in a proverb

2. widely known and spoken of

  Familiarity information: PROVERBIAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROVERBIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to or resembling or expressed in a proverb

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

the proverbial grasshopper

Pertainym:

proverb (a condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people)

Derivation:

proverb (a condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Widely known and spoken of

Context example:

your proverbial dizzy blonde

Similar:

known (apprehended with certainty)

 Context examples 

The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely hers; she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal of very painful import.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Still, such a search is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack: only one star in a thousand may be circling a black hole.

(Unpredicted stellar black hole discovered by astronomers, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack: the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

(NASA's Great Observatories Team Up to Find Magnified and Stretched Image of Distant Galaxy, NASA)