rite of passage

noun

plural rites of passage

: a ritual, event, or experience that marks or constitutes a major milestone or change in a person's life

Rites of passage celebrate the social movement of individuals into and out of groups or into or out of statuses of critical importance to the individual and to the community. Reproduction, the achievement of manhood and womanhood, marriage, and death are the principal worldwide occasions for rites of passage.

—Marvin Harris

For them the two years of missionary work, with the rigorous bootcamp-style training preceding it, is a rite of passage between graduation and marriage, adolescence and adult life.

—Malise Ruthven

Today, when each year American society becomes more complex, a veritable tapestry of nationalities, the strongest of our common threads may well be the rites of passage all immigrants face.

—Harold Holzer

The author, grandson of the poet Allen Tate, dropped out of Sewanee University after going through the by-now familiar 1960's rite of passage of drugs, sex, and antiwar demonstrations …

—Caroline Seebohm

compare initiation rite

Examples of rite of passage in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Spend your day either lolling around on the beaches or try out sailing (a Shelter Island rite of passage) on a sloop around the Peconic Bay. —Kira Turnbull, Travel + Leisure, 19 Apr. 2024

Because home prices and mortgage rates have soared, many millennials lack the funds to purchase a first home, a rite of passage for older generations. —USA TODAY, 17 Apr. 2024

Such grunt work has long been a rite of passage in investment banking, an industry at the top of the corporate pyramid that lures thousands of young people every year with the promise of prestige and pay. —Rob Copeland, New York Times, 10 Apr. 2024

Getting stung is a rite of passage for Belmont kiters; one local has endured the pain more than two dozen times. —Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times, 9 Feb. 2024

Saturn return is a rite of passage that everyone goes through in their late-twenties, early thirties. —Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 11 Apr. 2024

As crises around the world have pushed a record number of people from their homes, the Darién jungle — which must be traversed to reach the United States from South America by foot — has become an unforgiving rite of passage for those seeking new lives. —Julie Turkewitz Federico Rios, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2024

Apparently, this is a sort of rite of passage, to have a little bit of a rocky beginning. —Adam B. Vary, Variety, 3 Apr. 2024

Crossing up and over the fabled Donner Pass in the northern Sierra Nevada and descending to Lake Tahoe is one of those essential rites of passage for Californians. —Javier Panzar, Los Angeles Times, 7 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1897, in the meaning defined above