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

For Koreans on both sides of the border, reaching the peak has long been a rite of passage, but access has been closed off to most living in South Korea. —Will Ripley, CNN Money, 28 July 2025

The trip to the mainland is a rite of passage where the younger people sheltered by their island community learn to hunt the infected. —Tim Lammers, Forbes.com, 27 July 2025

This is a rite of passage, and a major time commitment, which many falconers don’t even attempt, choosing instead to buy birds from breeders or capture adults and release them at the end of the season. —Nick Kelley, Outdoor Life, 24 July 2025

In years past, temping had been a rite of passage for unemployed new graduates. —Amy Lindgren, Twin Cities, 19 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1897, in the meaning defined above