Which means roughly that business keeps one safe from love—ominous talk when one’s lover is a courtesan. I hoped that it was just another literary conceit I ought to know. (It is, I later learned, an apothegm by Ovid.).
A short, pithy, and instructive saying; a terse remark, conveying some important truth; a sententious precept or maxim
apophthegm
Расстановка переносов
ap·o·phthegm
Произношение
Этимология
() First attested 1553, from Ancient Greek ἀπόφθεγμα (apophthegma) from ἀποφθέγγομαι (apophthengomai, “I plainly speak my mind”) from ἀπό (apo, “from”) + φθέγγομαι (phthengomai, “I speak loudly”).