His general definition of the proverb was "a saying which is both well known and marked by some witty and original conception, 'pithy' as we say (
paroemia est celebre dictum, scita quapiam novitate insigne)" [Adages 6).
The first stanza is set in quotation marks, as if it were
paroemia, a borrowed text, a voice separate from the narrator's.
He then formulates a definition of his own, which in his view is sufficiently broad and exact to cover the adages in his collection: "A proverb is a saying in popular use, remarkable for some shrewd and novel turn of phrase" (
Paroemia est celebre di ctum, scita quapiam nouitate insigne).
And this saying they make their sheet-anchor." [11] Although the term "saying" could apply to any utterance, it more familiarly refers to an adage, a proverb, a motto, or an axiom, the very sense that Cranmer's "sheet-anchor" assumes; the Archbishop insinuates the issue of being into a figure known to rhetoric as
paroemia, literally translated, a "byword" or "proverb." [12]