rite
/rʌɪt
/noun
1A religious or other solemn ceremony or act: the rite of communion pagan fertility rites...
- The recipient must be an American boy or girl celebrating a religious rite: a first communion, confirmation, bar or bat mitzvah.
- Though suggestive of mystic, pagan rites of purification and primitivism, the film, like all true surrealism, outrageously defies attempts at pigeonholing analysis and close reading.
- It is thought they may have been killed as part of some religious rites but no one really knows and I wonder if, in the future, any finders of these human remains will be similarly appalled and mystified.
1.1A body of customary observances characteristic of a Church or a part of it: the Byzantine rite...
- Byzantine rites and customs, in particular the practice of a married clergy, presented a serious problem for the established American Catholic world dominated largely by the Irish.
1.2A social custom, practice, or conventional act: the British family Christmas rite...
- Such rites are practised in joint consultative committees, grievance procedures, procedures for disputes resolution and the like.
- Unlike deliberately constructed visions, the myths we live and work by often remain unseen, residing incognito in our daily rituals, rites, customs, and metaphors.
- The rites and customs of the Old South no longer work.
Phrases
rite of passage
Derivatives
riteless
Origin
Middle English: from Latin ritus '(religious) usage'.