Tradition

How to spell tradition

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tradition

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tradition mean?

1. nounA custom, belief, or practice passed down from one generation to the next.

Tradition in a sentence

• Baking a cake for every birthday is a family tradition.

• The village keeps the old harvest tradition alive each autumn.

Where does tradition come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin traditio, meaning a handing over or delivery, which was built from the verb tradere, 'to hand on' or 'to deliver'. That verb joined trans, meaning 'across' or 'over', with dare, meaning 'to give', so the literal idea was of something passed from one hand to another across the generations. English took the word through Old French tradicion in the late 1300s, at first with the concrete sense of handing over property or knowledge before it settled into the familiar meaning of customs and beliefs passed down over time. The very same tradere also gave us 'traitor' and 'treason', because to betray someone was, quite chillingly, to hand them over to the enemy. The single 'd' followed by 'ition' is the spelling worth remembering, since the smooth 'd' sound tempts some writers toward a doubled letter that the Latin root never had.

How the word is built

• tra- (from trans-: across, over)
• dit (from dare: to give, hand over)
• -ion (noun suffix)