Dictionary

folkway en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈfəʊkweɪ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈfoʊkˌweɪ/ (General-American)

Etymology

From folk + way.

Meanings

1. (in-plural, often) A belief or custom common to members of a culture or society.
   • By the time you are grown up and can consider the folk-ways of your childhood with detached impersonality, you have forgotten what was of most value. Rarely will a child tell frankly of his lore, and rarely can an adult remember. 1925, Dorothy Scarborough, assisted by Ola Lee Gulledge, “Children’s Game-songs”, in On the Trail of Negro Folk-songs, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, →OCLC, page 129:
   • Francis Ford Coppola is not only engaged in making conceivable to the American audience the strange folkways of the Mafia, a process of translation of one signifying system into another. He is also using the difference of the Mafia to explore what the culture chooses to keep out of sight—the culture's preference for corporate values above individual/democratic and family values, and the Mafia's preference for family values not bound by the cash nexus but by blood, that is, values of the heart. 1994, Joseph Natoli, “Guns and Provolone”, in Hauntings: Popular Film and American Culture 1990–1992, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 171:
   • The restricted sustentive range of manipulations of foreign aid in economic warfare is especially marked. This is due to the state of the domestic law concerning foreign aid; "reciprocal controls" which a recipient state can exert; and a "folk way" expectation of economic aid flowing from centers of great productivity, such as the United States, the Soviet Union, and the countries of Western Europe. This folk-way expectation has emerged as a postulate of an obligation to supply the "needs of the needy" upon which foreign aid reasoning in both donor and recipient states tends to be founded. 1967, Neill H. Alford, Jr., “Economic Warfare as a Primary Policy Device”, in Modern Economic Warfare: (Law and the Naval Participant) (Navpers 15031; International Law Studies 1963; LVI), Newport, R.I.: Naval War College; Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part II (The Naval Participant in Economic Warfare), pages 240–241:
   • He [Van Wyck Brooks] had opposed to the folkways the standard of the humanistic life. It was needful that he continue to affirm that standard by making it visible in his own spiritual manner, by living boldly, dangerously, in the fashion of the artist, by giving himself to life as men in America had never dared give themselves. But it seems that for some reason he has shrunk from continuing the challenge. 1924, Paul Rosenfeld, “Van Wyck Brooks”, in Port of New York: Essays on Fourteen American Moderns, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section V, page 53:
   • Another influencer, Mads Mura, schools an audience of more than 100,000 in the attainment of old-money folkways through a series of how-to reels on his stately Instagram account, Carter Beau. 2026 March 30, Guy Trebay, “Can You Fake Being Rich?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • From these supposed neolithic origins, the cult had declined with the advent of Christianity into a clandestine folk way practiced and handed down by a handful of individuals since medieval times, especially on the Welsh Marches, the place of its supposed prehistoric origin. 2002, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, “Nazi Satanism and the New Aeon”, in Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, →ISBN, pages 217–218:
   • Avila was certainly well prepared to comment authoritatively on the folkways of his ancestors; he spoke fluent Quechua and had spent many years among the Peruvian Indians as a missionary. 1996, David H. Bost, “Historians of the Colonial Period: 1620–1700”, in Roberto González Echevarría, Enrique Pupo-Walker, editors, The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, volume 1 (Discovery to Modernism), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 2001, →ISBN, page 149:
   • No one, reared in the folk ways of this particular subculture, growing up in it, understanding it, as he does, has spoken—not in its defense particularly, but from the 'inside.' 1998, Dianne Watkins Stuart, “Home to Come Home To: 1965–1967”, in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer’s Life, Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 181:
   • For years I've hoped that some enterprising editor would hire a hillbilly to go to the city and write his impressions of the quaint folkways of the cliff dwellers. I'd do it myself, cheap, and I've got a good questionnaire tucked away in readiness. 1937 April, Anthony Gish, “Yes, I’m a Hillbilly”, in Arnold Gingrich, editor, Esquire: The Magazine for Men, volume VII, number 4 (number 41 overall), Chicago, Ill.: Esquire, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 95, column 1:
   • When rustic rites become cosmopolitan fashions, the artifice is often more interesting than the original folkway. Self-flagellation, for instance, is an unworthiness ritual in dirt road villages but a refined art form in the social sciences. 1997, Charles Arthur Willard, “Rhetoric’s Lot”, in Alan G. Gross, William M. Keith, editors, Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 172:
   • At least since the time of Woodrow Wilson, studies of Congress have acknowledged the great importance of committee action in the legislative process. Stated in terms of legislative folkways, congressmen are expected to specialize in given subjects and then to rely on each other's specialized knowledge in areas that are not within their particular competence. 1989, John W[ells] Kingdon, “Fellow Congressmen”, in Congressmen’s Voting Decisions, 3rd edition, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 72:
   • But what is at stake in the microscopic examination of folkways? Consider the following example: queuing at a checkout in supermarkets. The folkway governing this behavior could be summarized as "First come, first served." [...] It's very likely that although the folkway (or social norm) "First come, first served" is used by shoppers to regulate their behavior, there are many circumstances in which it can be challenged. 2015, Philip Manning, “William Graham Sumner’s Proto-symbolic Interactionism”, in Philip D. Manning, editor, On Folkways and Mores: William Graham Sumner Then and Now (Law and Society), New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, →ISBN; republished Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2017, →ISBN, pages 44–45:
   • [I]f he wishes to continue the memories of the past and his Jewish personality, the Jew must assume the obligations incumbent on the members of a national group. He must learn its language and literature, interest himself in the upbuilding of its home, and seek to adjust its traditions and folkways and religious thought to the wants of his time. Only in this way can the Jew maintain and perpetuate the Jewish personality. 1928 February, Solomon Goldman, “A Rabbi Takes Stock”, in The Menorah Journal, volume XIV, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Intercollegiate Menorah Association, →OCLC, page 13:
   • It [a social institution] is a folkway, always new yet ever old, directive and responsive, a spur to and a check upon change, a creature of means and a master of ends. 1973, A[lfred] R[eginald] Radcliffe-Brown, “On Function and Social Institutions”, in Ephraim H[arold] Mizruchi, editor, The Substance of Sociology: Codes, Conduct, and Consequences, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Educational Division, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Meredith Corporation, →ISBN, part 8 (Institutions, Institutionalization, and Change), page 362:

Forms

Relateds

folklife · folklore

Translations (12)

ga daon-nós (custom or belief common to members of a society) · de Sitte (custom or belief common to members of a society) · it tradizione (custom or belief common to members of a society) · ko 민속 (custom or belief common to members of a society) · it costumanza (custom or belief common to members of a society) · cmn 民俗 (custom or belief common to members of a society) · de Brauch (custom or belief common to members of a society) · ru обы́чай (custom or belief common to members of a society) · af gebruik (custom or belief common to members of a society) · it costume (custom or belief common to members of a society) · hu népszokás (custom or belief common to members of a society) · fi kansanviisaus (custom or belief common to members of a society)