Folklore
noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The tales, legends, superstitions, and traditions of a particular ethnic population. countable, uncountable
"[T]here is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness."
- 2 the unwritten lore (stories and proverbs and riddles and songs) of a culture wordnet
- 3 The tales, superstitions etc. of any particular group or community. broadly, countable, uncountable
"A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in Appendix A, Hacker Folklore."
- 4 The collective of proofs or techniques which are widely known among mathematicians, but have never been formally published. countable, slang, uncountable
Example
More examples"Island folklore still recounts the story of the raft."
Etymology
From folk + lore, coined by British writer William Thoms in 1846 to replace terms such as "popular antiquities". Thoms imitated German terms such as Volklehre (“people's customs”) and Volksüberlieferung (“popular tradition”). Compare also Old English folclar (“popular instruction; homily”) and West Frisian folkloare (“folklore”).
Related phrases
More for "folklore"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.