folklore
- the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people; lore of a people.
- the study of such lore.
- a body of widely held but false or unsubstantiated beliefs.
Origin of folklore
Examples from the Web for folklore
Contemporary Examples
“British folklore has this very inextricable link to nature and the elements,” he told The Daily Beast.
The tomb-raiders are more terrified of the folklore spirits than they are of authorities that might catch them, he added.
“That became part of the folklore of the World Trade Center,” the cop noted.
Hero or Criminal? James Brady, the WTC Ironworker Who Jumped Off the BuildingMichael Daly
March 25, 2014
Yes, as a figure, “Santa Claus” has his roots in early Christian Europe, Dutch folklore, and Germanic paganism.
The Japan Times on March 6, 2010, reported that in folklore the fish comes to the beach as an omen of an earthquake.
Historical Examples
In this same connection may be named other items of folklore related by Mr. Dyer.
StoryologyBenjamin Taylor
Some of them are even comic characters, like the devil in Scottish folklore.
The Legacy of GreeceVarious
This cruder belief is more familiar in the folklore of Europe than the other.
The Science of Fairy TalesEdwin Sidney Hartland
In Folklore, however, the word is used in a different and wider sense.
The Science of Fairy TalesEdwin Sidney Hartland
The barghest has a kinsman in the Rongeur d'Os of Norman folklore.
folklore
- the unwritten literature of a people as expressed in folk tales, proverbs, riddles, songs, etc
- the body of stories and legends attached to a particular place, group, activity, etcHollywood folklore; rugby folklore
- the anthropological discipline concerned with the study of folkloric materials
Word Origin and History for folklore
n.
1846, coined by antiquarian William J. Thoms (1803-1885) as an Anglo-Saxonism (replacing popular antiquities) and first published in the "Athenaeum" of Aug. 22, 1846, from folk + lore. Old English folclar meant "homily."
This word revived folk in a modern sense of "of the common people, whose culture is handed down orally," and opened up a flood of compound formations, e.g. folk art (1892), folk-hero (1874), folk-medicine (1877), folk-tale/folk tale (1850; Old English folctalu meant "genealogy"), folk-song (1847), folk singer (1876), folk-dance (1877).
folklore
Traditional stories and legends, transmitted orally (rather than in writing) from generation to generation. The stories of Paul Bunyan are examples of American folklore.