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Tens of thousands of Polish proverbs exist; many have origins in the Middle Ages. The oldest known Polish proverb dates to 1407. A number of Paremiology (paremiology) exist; and Polish proverbs have been collected in numerous dictionaries and similar works from the 17th century onward. Studies in Polish paremiology have begun in the 19th century. The largest and most reputable collection of Polish proverbs to date, edited by Julian Krzyżanowski, was published in 1970s.
Some Polish proverbs have been medieval translations of Latin classics. Thus, " Oko pańskie konia tuczy" – "The master's eye fattens the horse" – comes from the Latin " Oculus domini saginat equum"; and the latter Latin proverb was likely translated from a still older Persian language one. Other proverbs have taken their origin from other European languages.
Many proverbs have been popularized by Polish literature. For example, the popularity of " Oko pańskie konia tuczy" has been attributed to its inclusion in Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem, Pan Tadeusz.
Similarly to English proverbs, Polish proverbs have been criticized for being sexist.
The 19th century saw the first work dedicated more to analyzing the proverbs and their history than solely collecting them, the Przysłowia narodowe, z wyjaśnieniem źródła, początku oraz sposobu ich użycia, okazujące charakter, zwyczaje i obyczaje, przesądy, starożytności i wspomnienia ojczyste (1830) of . Other early works on Polish paremiology were published in the 19th century by Oskar Kolberg and Samuel Adalberg, the latter publishing a collection of over 30,000 Polish proverbs ( Księga przysłów, przypowieści i wyrażeń przysłowiowych polskich - The Book of Polish Proverbs - 1889–1894). Adalberg's work was praised as "the first modern work on this topic in Polish" and "the most extensive collection ever made in this field". The early 20th century saw further scholarly analysis of Polish proverbs by scholars such as Aleksander Brückner and Jan Stanisław Bystroń, the latter known as "the father of modern Polish paremiology", and the author of the monograph simply titled Przysłowia polskie (Polish proverbs, 1933). After World War II, significant contributions to the field of Polish paremiology were carried out by Julian Krzyżanowski. He was the editor of the largest and most reputable collection of Polish proverbs to date, Nowa księga przysłów i wyrażeń przysłowiowych polskich (New Book of Polish Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions, also known as Nowa Księga przysłów polskich, A New Book of Polish Proverbs, published in several volumes in the years 1969–1978), dubbed the "bible of Polish proverbs". Despite the proliferation of similar works in later years, in 2012 his work was still described as "the most comprehensive" of its type in Poland. Other notable modern Polish paremiologists include , Dobrosława Świerczyńska, , and Władysław Kopaliński.
In 2009–2018 alone, 16 collections of proverbs aimed at young readers were published in Poland; many addressed to a mass audience are of varying quality.
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