tradition

/tɹəˈdɪʃ.ən/

tradition noun: a 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.

Noun

tradition (countable and uncountable, plural traditions)

A 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
- 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
Synonyms:

way, custom
A commonly held system.
- They followed the tradition of lighting candles for special occasions.
Synonyms:

doctrine
An established or distinctive style or method
- Following tradition, the victorious athlete runs a lap around the track.
The 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
The 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...

Verb

tradition (third-person singular simple present traditions, present participle traditioning, simple past and past participle traditioned)

(obsolete) To 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)

tradition meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tradition in Hindi

a part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation: परंपरा paramparā, रस्म rasm

tradition in Tamil

a part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation: பாரம்பரியம் pārampariyam

tradition in Marathi

a part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation: परंपरा paramprā

tradition in Urdu

a part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation: رِوایَت rivāyat, حَدِیث hadīs, رِواج rivāj, سُنَّت sunnat, رَسْم rasm

More languagesFewer languages

tradition in Bengali: ঐতিহ্য ōitijjho, রীতি riti, প্রথা protha, তমদ্দুন tomoddun
tradition in Telugu: సంప్రదాయం sampradāyaṁ
tradition in Malayalam: പാരമ്പര്യം pāramparyaṁ
tradition in Kannada: ಸಂಪ್ರದಾಯ sampradāya
tradition in Punjabi: ਪਰੰਪਰਾ paramprā
tradition in Gujarati: પરંપરા paramprā
tradition in Sanskrit: परम्परा paramparā, सम्प्रदाय sampradāya, पारम्पर्य pāramparya, आगम āgama
tradition in Sinhala: චාරිත්රය cāritraya
tradition in Assamese: পৰম্পৰা porompora
tradition in Nepali: परम्परा paramparā, चलन calan
tradition in Pashto: دود dod, عنعنه 'an'ana, چوچ čoč
tradition in Tagalog: kamihasnan, kaugalian, pinamulihan, tradisyon
tradition in Arabic: تَقْلِيد taqlīd
tradition in Malay: tradisi, adat
tradition in Indonesian: tradisi, adat
tradition in Thai: ประเพณี bprà-pee-nii, แบบแผน bɛ̀ɛp-pɛ̌ɛn, ธรรมเนียม tam-niiam, จารีต jaa-rîit
tradition in Vietnamese: sự truyền miệng, phong tục, truyền thống
tradition in Myanmar: ပဝေဏီ pa.weni, ဓလေ့ dha.le.

Examples of tradition in a sentence

Today we brought together clergy from the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformed traditions for ecumenical dialogue.
Tradition holds that the Torah was handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.
The new design is very edgy and certainly flies in the face of tradition.

All 40 example sentences with tradition

Synonyms of tradition

Forms of tradition

Noun
plural	traditions
Verb
third-person singular present	traditions
present participle	traditioning
past participle	traditioned
past	traditioned

Plural of tradition: traditions

Origin of tradition

From Middle English tradicioun, from Old French tradicion, from Latin trāditiō, from the verb trādō. Doublet of treason.

Words formed from tradition

Phrases with tradition

Words that rhyme with tradition

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tradition

What does tradition mean?: Tradition means a 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.
What is tradition in Hindi?: Tradition in Hindi is परंपरा (paramparā), रस्म (rasm). See Tradition meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tradition?: Tradition can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce tradition?: Tradition is pronounced /tɹəˈdɪʃ.ən/.
What is the plural of tradition?: The plural of tradition is traditions.

Words near tradition in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: tradition (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-tradition.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tradition.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tradition. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.