Neal Norrick helps define Taylor's "incommunicable quality":

Neal Norrick, How Proverbs Mean. Semantic Studies in English Proverbs. 1985 p. 45.


Norrick notices that “for well known proverbs, mention of one crucial recognizable phrase serves to call forth the entire proverb. Let us designate this minimal recognizable unit as the kernel of the proverb … Proverbs bear much greater social, philosophical and psychological significance for speakers than do other idiomatic units.” The semantic density of proverbial material thus impresses such texts on our consciousness. “Consequently a speaker can call forth a particular proverb for his hearer with a brief allusion to its kernel”.

Bartlett Jere Whiting expounds upon the proverb at length

B. J. Whiting, "The Nature of the Proverb," Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology 14 (1932) 302:

Brief excerpt only:

A proverb must be venerable; it must bear the sign of antiquity, and, since such signs may be counterfeited by a clever literary man, it should be attested in different places at different times. This last requirement we must often waive in dealing with very early literature, where the material at our disposal is incomplete.

Archer Taylor on the definition of the term 'proverb'

Archer Taylor, The Proverb, 1931, p. 3:

The definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking; and should we fortunately combine in a single definition all the essential elements and give each the proper emphasis, we should not even then have a touchstone. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not.

Those who do not speak a language can never recognize all its proverbs, and similarly much that is truly proverbial escapes us in Elizabethan and older English.

Let us be content with recognizing that a proverb is a saying current among the folk. At least so much of a definition is indisputable.

definitions

There is no satisfactory definition of the proverb, although countless attempts at such a definition exist.