folklore

Etymology

It is a compound from English folk + lore,^[2][3][4][5] coined by the antiquary William John Thoms.^{[2][3][5][6][7]} He proposed it in a letter to the “Athenaeum”, dated 12 August and published on 22 August 1846, as “a good Saxon compound” in place of “Popular Antiquities” or “Popular Literature”;^[2][6][3] the letter was signed with the name Ambrose Merton.^[7] Etymonline calls it an Anglo-Saxonism imitating compounds with German Volk (“people”),^[3] and Merriam-Webster treats it as a translation of Volkskunde,^[8][9] which the OED compares, used from the late 18th century for a people's culture.^[2] Old English had a compound folclār (“homily, sermon”) of the same elements, which Thoms was unlikely to know of.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The traditional beliefs, legends and customs of the common people, and the study of them: 1846, in Thoms's letter, which explained the word as “the Lore of the People”.^[2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

Thoms had begun as an editor of old tales and prose romances and studied customs, superstitions and the popular lore in Shakespeare.^[7] His word revived folk in the sense "of the common people, whose culture is passed on orally" and led to many compounds: folk song (1847, translating German Volkslied), folktale (1850), folk-hero (1874), folk dance (1877) and folk art (1892).^[3] Derivatives such as folklorist followed by 1876.^[10] From 1917 the word was also used for the commonly held beliefs or stories about a particular subject or activity,^[2] and later for a popular belief with no real basis.^[11][4]

Timeline

• 1846 – coined by W. J. Thoms in the “Athenaeum”.^[2][3][6]
• 1847 – folk-song.^[3]
• 1876 – folklorist.^[10]
• 1917 – stories and beliefs about a particular subject.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The traditional beliefs, customs, legends, songs and sayings of a people, passed on by word of mouth.^[12][8][2]
2. The study of these, as a branch of knowledge.^[8][12][2]
3. The stories and beliefs that grow up around a particular place, group or activity: football folklore.^[12][2]
4. A widely held but unfounded belief.^[11][8]

Word family

• folkloric
• folklorish
• folklorist
• folkloristic
• folkloristics

Related words

• folk
• lore
• folktale

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
7. ^ a b c Liberman, Anatoly, The Oxford Etymologist (blog column), OUPblog, blog.oup.com, p. "William John Thoms, The Man Who Invented The Word Folklore", 9 July 2008
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins