tradition

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation, especially by oral communication.
2. n. A mode of thought or behavior followed by a people continuously from generation to generation; a custom or usage.
3. n. A set of such customs and usages viewed as a coherent body of precedents influencing the present: followed family tradition in dress and manners. See Synonyms at heritage.
4. n. A body of unwritten religious precepts.
5. n. A time-honored practice or set of such practices.
6. n. Law Transfer of property to another.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of handing over something in a formal legal manner; the act of delivering into the hands of another; delivery.
2. n. The handing down of opinions, doctrines, practices, rites, and customs from ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any opinion or practice from forefathers to descendants or from one generation to another, by oral communication, without written memorials.
3. n. A statement, opinion, or belief, or a body of statements or opinions or beliefs, that has been handed down from age to age by oral communication; knowledge or belief transmitted without the aid of written memorials.
4. n. In theology, that body of doctrine and discipline supposed to have been revealed or commanded by God, but not committed to writing, and therefore not incorporated in the Scriptures. According to the Pharisees, when Moses was on Mount Sinai two sets of laws were delivered to him by God, one of which was recorded, while the other was handed down from father to son, and miraculously kept uncorrupted to their day. These are the traditions referred to in Mat. xv. 2 and other parallel passages. Roman Catholic theologians maintain that much of Christ's oral teaching not committed to writing by the immediate disciples has been preserved in the church, and that this instruction, together with that subsequently afforded to the church by the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit—all of which is to be found in the writings of the fathers, the decrees of councils, and the decretals of the Popes—constitutes a body of tradition as truly divine, and therefore as trnly authoritative, as the Scriptures themselves (L. Abbott, Dict. Rel. Knowledge). Anglican theologians, on the other hand, while acknowledging tradition recorded in ancient writers as of more or less authority in interpretation of Scripture and in questions of church polity and ceremonies, do not coördinate it with Scripture.
5. n. In Mohammedanism, the words and deeds of Mohammed (and to some extent of his companions), not contained in the Koran, but handed down for a time orally, and then recorded. They are called hadīsh, ‘sayings,’ or oftener sunna, ‘customs,’ and they constitute a very large body, and have given rise to an immense literature. By their acceptance or non-acceptance of the traditions as authoritative, the Mohammedans are divided into Sunnites and Shiites. See Sunna, Sunnite.
6. n. A custom handed down from one age or generation to another and having acquired almost the force of law.
7. n. In the fine arts, literature, etc., the accumulated experience, advance, or achievement of the past, as handed down by predecessors or derived immediately from them by artists, schools, or writers.
8. To transmit as a tradition.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. n. A commonly held system.
3. v. obsolete To transmit by way of tradition; to hand down.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of delivering into the hands of another; delivery.
2. n. The unwritten or oral delivery of information, opinions, doctrines, practices, rites, and customs, from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any knowledge, opinions, or practice, from forefathers to descendants by oral communication, without written memorials.
3. n. Hence, that which is transmitted orally from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; knowledge or belief transmitted without the aid of written memorials; custom or practice long observed.
4. n. An unwritten code of law represented to have been given by God to Moses on Sinai.
5. n. That body of doctrine and discipline, or any article thereof, supposed to have been put forth by Christ or his apostles, and not committed to writing.
6. v. obsolete To transmit by way of tradition; to hand down.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a specific practice of long standing
2. n. an inherited pattern of thought or action