rite of passage

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English[edit]

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Noun[edit]

rite of passage (plural rites of passage)

  1. (anthropology) A ceremony or series of ceremonies, often very ritualized, to celebrate a transition in a person’s life. Baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals are among the best known examples.
    After John officially attained his majority, Robert bought him his first legal beer. This is a common American rite of passage.
    • 1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 10:
      The so-called rites of passage, which occupy such a prominent place in the life of a primitive society (ceremonials of birth, naming, puberty, marriage, burial, etc.), are distinguished by formal, and usually very severe, exercises of severance, whereby the mind is radically cut away from the attitudes, attachments, and life patterns of the stage being left behind.
    • 2021 September 15, Laura Martin, “How talent shows became TV's most bizarre programmes”, in BBC[1]:
      Not only did these holiday resorts become a rite of passage for TV's biggest talents – Red Coats comedians, magicians and presenters were often scouted, then sent to perform live at places like the London Palladium, before securing a television contract – but the culture within them meant that the audience were already invested in this type of entertainment once they returned home.

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