tradition

plural traditions

1. countableuncountableA part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation, possibly differing in detail from family to family, such as the way to celebrate holidays.

   After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betokened death.

   1850, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Tree

   3 more examples

   Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, "tradition" should positively be discouraged.

   1920, T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, in The Sacred Wood

   Evidently he did not mean to be a mere figurehead, but to carry on the old tradition of Wilsthorpe's; and that was considered to be a good thing in itself and an augury for future prosperity.

   1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 2, in Well Tackled!

   The tradition continues today. Twenty-four-year-old Aziza Tojiyeva, who lives in a small village about 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, learned how to embroider from her mother, Mukhabbat Kuchkarova, who learned from her own grandmother.

   2024 December 19, Amy Gunia, “Young Uzbeks are finding new markets for traditional handicrafts online”, in CNN Business

   Synonyms: way, custom

2. countableuncountableA commonly held system.

   They followed the tradition of lighting candles for special occasions.

   Synonyms: doctrine

3. countableuncountableAn established or distinctive style or method

   Following tradition, the victorious athlete runs a lap around the track.

4. countableuncountableThe act of delivering into the hands of another; delivery.

   A deed takes effect only from this tradition or delivery; for, if the date be false or impossible, the delivery ascertains the time of it.

   1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC

5. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe entirety of a text's transmission; all the versions of a work.

   It is, for example, apparent, in light of further research and when considering more manuscripts, that the manuscript tradition of the Life of Kiros (a very widespread hagiographical text) is much more complex than he had thought (Marrassini 2004; see Krzyżanowska 2015).

   2020, Alessandro Bausi, “7.5 Philological practices: Ethiopic”, in Philipp Roelli, editor, Handbook of Stemmatology: History, Methodology, Digital Approaches, De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 490

present singular third person traditions · participle present traditioning · participle past traditioned · past traditioned

1. obsoleteTo transmit by way of tradition; to hand down.

   The following story is […] traditioned with very much credit amongst our English Catholics.

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)