as in proverb
an often stated observation regarding something from common experience
a handbook of sententiae and advice for those about to enter the state of matrimony
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sententia
Noun
-
What does the phrase squeaky bum time, the racehorse Devon Loch, and the Portuguese proverb ‘morrer na prais’ all have in common?—
Ian Irving,
New York Times,
28 Feb. 2026 -
The rooms The old Japanese proverb ‘*kachou fuugetsu’—*which translates as ‘flower, bird, wind, moon’ evoking a sense of the transient beauty of nature—is a key concept at the hotel.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
26 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes, and the existential problems that war presents often act as a stimulus to innovation.—
David Szondy
May 02,
New Atlas,
2 May 2026
-
Grandma may be the queen of nonsensical sayings, but Dad is certainly the king of cheesy jokes.—
Hallie Milstein,
Southern Living,
2 May 2026
Noun
-
At the building’s peak, five-foot-tall concrete letters spell out a hundred and three words of a speech delivered by Obama in Selma, Alabama, in 2015, on the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when John Lewis and other civil-rights activists were beaten at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.—
Peter Slevin,
New Yorker,
4 May 2026
-
The aspiration gap, in other words, is not just a story about young adults falling behind their parents.—
Nick Lichtenberg,
Fortune,
3 May 2026
Noun
-
Holmes’ feed is a babbling stream of self-help epigrams, ankle-deep reflections and many, many photos of herself.—
Mark Z. Barabak,
Mercury News,
10 Dec. 2025
-
That celebrated epigram is delivered by the character of Octave, who is the greatest creation of Renoir’s career—not least because he’s played by Renoir in a performance that’s essentially a self-portrait, even an onscreen self-creation.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
30 July 2025
Noun
-
But that maxim may not hold up this year.—
Sarah Min,
CNBC,
27 Apr. 2026
-
But the maxim applies in a different way in the documentary Fork in the Road, which made its world premiere Saturday at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California’s wine country.—
Matthew Carey,
Deadline,
29 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
An unexpected new burst of infamy arrived in 2011, when the motto appeared at SlutWalk NYC, a feminist protest, on a sign held by a protester—a white woman, as far as anyone could tell.—
Kelefa Sanneh,
New Yorker,
4 May 2026
-
By Wednesday’s Game 5 of this first-round playoff series against the Toronto Raptors, the motto had drifted down toward the bottom of the giveaways, and the font size shrank.—
Eric Koreen,
New York Times,
30 Apr. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Sententia.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sententia. Accessed 9 May. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
