The term tradition was first introduced in the 1384 John Wycliffe Bible as tradicioun, meaning “the action of imparting something”. Variations of the word during that time included tradicyon, tradycion, tradycyon, tradicion, tradicion, and more; the addition of the letter t in the middle occurred around the seventeenth century. Tradicioun originates from an Old French word that signifies “handing over” and can be traced back to the Latin noun traditionem, which meant “give up” or “surrender”, a concept that evolved metaphorically as the word developed. This is rooted in the verb tradere (“to hand over”), formed by the prefix trans– meaning “across”, and the root dare meaning “to give”. These roots can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European origins tere (“to cross over”) and do (“to give”).
