Word.ws English Dictionary

antiproverb

antiproverb noun: a humorous adaptation of one or more existing proverbs.

Noun

antiproverb (plural antiproverbs)

  1. A humorous adaptation of one or more existing proverbs.
    • The system isn’t broken. It’s fixed.¶ Another species of anti-proverb, this one plays on the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” which seems to have emerged in the 1960s.2015 April 16, David Shariatmadari, “Are these 11 proverbs for the digital age?”, in The Guardian
  2. A proverb that contradicts another.
    • But for every proverb there is an antiproverb ("Too many cooks spoil the broth" vs. "Two heads are better than one," and so on).1987, Howard Margolis, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment, page 92

Forms of antiproverb

pluralantiproverbs
alternative formanti-proverb

Origin of antiproverb

Coined by paremiologist Wolfgang Mieder in 1982, anti- + proverb.

Questions about antiproverb

What does antiproverb mean?
Antiproverb means a humorous adaptation of one or more existing proverbs.
What part of speech is antiproverb?
Antiproverb is a noun.
What is the plural of antiproverb?
The plural of antiproverb is antiproverbs.

Words near antiproverb in the dictionary

  1. antiprotonic helium
  2. antiprotons
  3. antiprotozoal
  4. antiprotozoals
  5. antiprotozoan
  6. antiproverb
  7. antiproverbs
  8. antiprudential
  9. antipruritic
  10. antipruritics
  11. antipseudomonal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antiproverb (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “antiproverb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/antiproverb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.