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

By what the depictions reveal, however, this rite of passage most likely occurred between one and four years old. —Maria Mocerino, Interesting Engineering, 13 Dec. 2025

Fewer people can count on the classic rites of passage anymore—or assume that those rites will make the rest of life easier. —Faith Hill, The Atlantic, 8 Dec. 2025

The challenge of being a Black single mother bringing up two boys in a society that seemed to want to make going to prison a rite of passage for them. —Bea L. Hines, Miami Herald, 5 Dec. 2025

While homeownership is traditionally viewed as a quintessential rite of passage, for many millennials and Gen Z, the goal of buying a house feels out of reach. —Celia Fernandez tasia Jensen, CNBC, 4 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1897, in the meaning defined above