Folklore

How to spell folklore

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce folklore

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does folklore mean?

1. nounThe traditional beliefs, stories, and customs of a community, passed down informally through the generations.

Folklore in a sentence

• The village folklore described a hidden spring that supposedly cured fevers.

• Her research compared the folklore of fishing communities across two countries.

Where does folklore come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a deliberately coined English compound, joining two native Old English words: folc, meaning 'the people' or 'a nation', and lar, meaning 'learning', 'teaching' or 'that which is taught'. The combination was invented in 1846 by the English antiquarian William John Thoms, who proposed it in a magazine letter as a tidy 'good Saxon compound' to replace the clumsy phrase 'popular antiquities'. It rapidly caught on to mean the traditional stories, customs, and beliefs handed down among a people by word of mouth. Because both halves are genuine Old English, the word feels much older than it actually is. The spelling trap is the silent path of the vowels: 'folk' keeps its silent 'l', and 'lore' ends in a quiet '-ore' rather than the simpler '-or', so writers must remember both pieces stay intact when they fuse.

How the word is built

• folk (people, from Old English folc)
• lore (knowledge, teaching, from Old English lar)