paramiographer

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek παροιμίᾱ (paroimíā, “proverb”) +‎ -grapher.

Noun

paramiographer (plural paramiographers)

1. (rare) A collector or writer of proverbs.
   • 1835, I[saac] D'Israeli, “The Philosophy of Proverbs”, in Curiosities of Literature (Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors; 75), volume 3, Paris: Baudry's European Library, page 64:

     A collection of Danish proverbs, accompanied by a French translation, was printed at Copenhagen, in a quarto volume, 1761. England may boast of no inferior paramiographers. The grave and judicious Camden, the religious Herbert, the entertaining Howel, the facetious Fuller, and the laborious Ray, with others, have preserved our national sayings.

   • 2009 April, C. Arinola Akinmade, “Figures of Association and Sound in some Nigerian Proverbs: Examples from Ondo Culture”, in African Research Review, volume 3, number 3, →ISSN, page 124:

     Metaphor is regarded as the most important and wide spread figure of speech in poetry and proverbs. It is an imaginary comparison of one thing or idea or action rather than direct statement. Indeed paramiographers believe that all proverbs are metaphorical.

   • 2022, Dzhamilya M. Khuchbarova, Alla G. Sokolova, Magomed I. Magomedov, “Usage of Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs in Economic Discourse”, in Vladimir I. Karasik, Evgeniya V. Ponomarenko, editors, Topical Issues of Linguistics and Teaching Methods in Business and Professional Communication – TILTM 2022 (European Proceedings of Educational Sciences; 4), London: European Publisher Ltd., →DOI, →ISBN, page 357:

     Nowadays paramiographers take interest in this genre not only in the English language but also in other languages. Exemplarily, an authoritative researcher Anna T. Litovkina also studies Russian and Hungarian anti-proverbs in tandem with R. Vargha (Katalin Vargha) and D. Boronkai (Dora Boronkai).

Further reading

• “paramiographer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.