Note 11 — LECTURE I. THE FORM AND DEFINITION OF A PROVERB.

The name which the proverb bears in Spanish points to this fact, that popularity is a necessary condition of it. This name is not proverbio, for that in Spanish signifies an apothegm, an aphorism, a maxim; but refrán, which is a referendo, from the frequency of its repetition; yet see Diez, Etymol. Wörterbuch, p. 284. The etymology of the Greek παροιμία is somewhat doubtful, but it too means probably a trite, wayside saying.