a. (sb.) [f. TRADITION sb. + -AL: cf. F. traditionnel, also med.L. trāditiōnālis (840) = trāditōrius TRADITORY.]
1. Belonging to, consisting in, or of the nature of tradition; handed down by or derived from tradition.
a. 1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., VI. v. § 7. In sundry traditional writings set down by their great interpreters and scribes.
1641. Milton, Prel. Episc., Wks. 1851, III. 78. We esteem his traditionall ware, as lightly as Victor did.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., IV. xviii. § 10. There can be no Evidence that any traditional Revelation is of divine Original, in the Words we receive it, and in the Sense we understand it, so clear, and so certain, as those of the Principles of Reason.
1814. Scott, Wav., lxxii. The traditional records of the respectable and ingenious Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
1911. H. M. R. Murray, Erthe upon Erthe, Introd. 23. The popular traditional version of the poem tended to become modified.
b. That is such according to tradition; asserted or related by tradition.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., v. 246. This traditional selection of Gerizim as the scene of the meeting with Melchizedek is further confirmed by all the circumstances of the narrative.
1874. Sayce, Compar. Philol., viii. 302. The heirlooms of a traditional past.
1879. S. C. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., xxii. 455. Quarentania, the traditional region of the forty days temptation.
1908. [Miss Fowler], Betw. Trent & Ancholme, 19. A traditional ‘Rose of Sharon’ survives from our great-grandmother’s days.
† 2. Observant of, bound by tradition. Obs. rare.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. i. 45. You are too sencelesse obstinate, my Lord, Too ceremonious, and traditionall…. You breake not Sanctuarie, in seizing him.
1644. Milton, Judgm. Bucer, Wks. 1851, IV. 299. A pervers Age, eager in the reformation of Names and Ceremonies, but in realities as traditional and as ignorant as their forefathers.
† B. sb. A traditional belief or practice. rare–1.
1643. W. Greenhill, Axe at Root, 13. We stick too much to Mosaicalls, Prelaticalls, and Traditionalls.
Hence Traditionality, traditional quality or character; a traditional belief or principle; Traditionalize v., trans. to render traditional.
1834. New Monthly Mag., XLI. 455. We may trace a *traditionality, perhaps, in the style of representing Falstaff.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, vi. (1858), 351. Many a man, doing loud work in the world, stands only on some thin traditionality, conventionality; to him indubitable, to you incredible.
1893. American Israelite, 7 Dec., 4/5. ‘Kol nidri,’ sung in German temples on the eve of the Day of Atonement, he finds to be the single instance of unquestioned traditionality in the Hebrew service of to-day.
1882. Davidson, in Encycl. Brit., XIV. 860/2. [Longfellow’s visit to Europe] *traditionalized his mind … and rendered him in some measure unfit to feel or express the spirit of American nature and life.
