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Tradition vs Authority - What's the difference?

tradition | authority |

As nouns the difference between tradition and authority

is that tradition is tradition while authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders.

tradition

Noun

(en noun)
  • A part of culture that is passed from person to person or generation to generation, possibly differing in detail from family to family, such as the way to celebrate holidays.
  • *
  • * {{quote-book, year=1928, author=Lawrence R. Bourne
  • , title=Well Tackled! , chapter=2 citation , passage=Evidently he did not mean to be a mere figurehead, but to carry on the old tradition of Wilsthorpe's; and that was considered to be a good thing in itself and an augury for future prosperity.}}
  • *
  • A commonly held system. (rfex)
  • The act of delivering into the hands of another; delivery.
  • * Blackstone
  • A deed takes effect only from the tradition or delivery.

    Derived terms

    * traditional * traditionally * traditionalism

    Synonyms

    * (a commonly held system) doctrine

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To transmit by way of tradition; to hand down.
  • * Fuller
  • The following story is traditioned with very much credit amongst our English Catholics.

    authority

    English

    Alternative forms

    * authourity (obsolete)

    Noun

  • (label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
  • * 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)
  • But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
  • (label) Persons in command; specifically, government.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities . A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Legal highs: A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • (label) A person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject.
  • * 1930 September 18, Albert Einstein, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman
  • To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.

    Derived terms

    * moral authority