tradition

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
tradition/trəˈdɪʃn/

▶noun

• 1 the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

  ■ a long-established custom or belief passed on from one generation to another.

• 2 an artistic or literary method or style established by an artist, writer, or movement, and subsequently followed by others.

• 3 (in Christianity) doctrine not explicit in the Bible but held to derive from the oral teaching of Christ and the Apostles.

  ■ (in Judaism) an ordinance of the oral law not in the Torah but held to have been given by God to Moses.

  ■ (in Islam) a saying or act ascribed to the Prophet but not recorded in the Koran.

  See Hadith.

– derivatives
traditionary adjective,
traditionist noun,
traditionless adjective.

– origin ME: from OFr. tradicion, or from L. traditio(n-), from tradere ‘deliver, betray’, from trans- ‘across’ + dare ‘give’.