folkway

plural folkways · alternative folk way · alternative folk-way

1. in pluraloftenA belief or custom common to members of a culture or society.

   It [a social institution] is a folkway, always new yet ever old, directive and responsive, a spur to and a check upon change, a creature of means and a master of ends.

   1973, A[lfred] R[eginald] Radcliffe-Brown, “On Function and Social Institutions”, in Ephraim H[arold] Mizruchi, editor, The Substance of Sociology: Codes, Conduct, and Consequences, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Educational Division, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Meredith Corporation, →ISBN, part 8 (Institutions, Institutionalization, and Change), page 362

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   He [Van Wyck Brooks] had opposed to the folkways the standard of the humanistic life. It was needful that he continue to affirm that standard by making it visible in his own spiritual manner, by living boldly, dangerously, in the fashion of the artist, by giving himself to life as men in America had never dared give themselves. But it seems that for some reason he has shrunk from continuing the challenge.

   1924, Paul Rosenfeld, “Van Wyck Brooks”, in Port of New York: Essays on Fourteen American Moderns, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section V, page 53

   By the time you are grown up and can consider the folk-ways of your childhood with detached impersonality, you have forgotten what was of most value. Rarely will a child tell frankly of his lore, and rarely can an adult remember.

   1925, Dorothy Scarborough, assisted by Ola Lee Gulledge, “Children’s Game-songs”, in On the Trail of Negro Folk-songs, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, →OCLC, page 129

   [I]f he wishes to continue the memories of the past and his Jewish personality, the Jew must assume the obligations incumbent on the members of a national group. He must learn its language and literature, interest himself in the upbuilding of its home, and seek to adjust its traditions and folkways and religious thought to the wants of his time. Only in this way can the Jew maintain and perpetuate the Jewish personality.

   1928 February, Solomon Goldman, “A Rabbi Takes Stock”, in The Menorah Journal, volume XIV, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Intercollegiate Menorah Association, →OCLC, page 13

   For years I've hoped that some enterprising editor would hire a hillbilly to go to the city and write his impressions of the quaint folkways of the cliff dwellers. I'd do it myself, cheap, and I've got a good questionnaire tucked away in readiness.

   1937 April, Anthony Gish, “Yes, I’m a Hillbilly”, in Arnold Gingrich, editor, Esquire: The Magazine for Men, volume VII, number 4 (number 41 overall), Chicago, Ill.: Esquire, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 95, column 1

   The restricted sustentive range of manipulations of foreign aid in economic warfare is especially marked. This is due to the state of the domestic law concerning foreign aid; "reciprocal controls" which a recipient state can exert; and a "folk way" expectation of economic aid flowing from centers of great productivity, such as the United States, the Soviet Union, and the countries of Western Europe. This folk-way expectation has emerged as a postulate of an obligation to supply the "needs of the needy" upon which foreign aid reasoning in both donor and recipient states tends to be founded.

   1967, Neill H. Alford, Jr., “Economic Warfare as a Primary Policy Device”, in Modern Economic Warfare: (Law and the Naval Participant) (Navpers 15031; International Law Studies 1963; LVI), Newport, R.I.: Naval War College; Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part II (The Naval Participant in Economic Warfare), pages 240–241