folklore

plural folklores · alternative folk-lore

1. countableuncountableThe tales, legends, superstitions, and traditions of a particular ethnic population.

   Crossing the ridge she stood at last upon the brink of Kor-ul-GRYF—the horror place of the folklore of her race.

   1921, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 5, in Tarzan the Terrible, A. C. McClurg

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   [T]here is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.

   1903 April 18, W[illiam] E[dward] Burghardt Du Bois, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, in The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., →OCLC, pages 11–12

   Why has not England a great mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the pipes of Greece.

   1908–1910 (date written; published 1910 October 18), E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter 33, in Howards End, London: Edward Arnold, →OCLC

   “Lisieux is a little town in Normandy,” she said. “I was there a few days with your father, one summer, long ago. It’s a country full of old stories, folklore, and traditions; and the people still believe in the Old Scratch pretty literally. […]”

   1913, Booth Tarkington, The Flirt, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC

2. broadlycountableuncountableThe tales, superstitions etc. of any particular group or community.

   A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in Appendix A, Hacker Folklore.

   1996, Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3rd edition, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 3

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   Foxes boss Rodgers had a smile that illuminated Wembley as he joined Leicester's players in joyous scenes of celebration after the manager and his players had written their name into the club's folklore.

   2021 May 28, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0 – 1 Leicester”, in BBC Sport

3. countableslanguncountablemathematicsThe collective of proofs or techniques which are widely known among mathematicians, but have never been formally published.