initiation rite
Joining a group
An initiation rite is a ceremony marking passage from one status to another—childhood to adulthood, outsider to member, novice to full participant.
Such rituals often involve tests, ordeals, or symbolic acts: The fraternity's initiation rites were notoriously harsh.
The term applies across contexts from tribal coming-of-age ceremonies to secret society inductions.
Also called rite of passage or rite of initiation.
- baptismRitual water purification ceremony
- coming-of-ageYouth becoming adulthood
- transformative experienceEvent altering one fundamentally
- ordinationClergy appointment ceremony
- confirmationEstablishing something as true
sacred ceremony · ancestor veneration · ceremony · identity formation · scarification · first hunt · community bonding · pilgrimage · vision quest · spirit animal · spiritual awakening · sacrament · divine calling · liminal · blood oath · hazing · emotional catharsis · mystical journey
- adolescencepuberty, teenager, coming-of-age, growing up, teen
- ceremonieswedding ceremony, wedding, weddings, graduation, graduations
- customscustoms, customs clearance, wedding custom, customs declaration, burial custom
- ritualsceremony, sacrament, blessing, prayer, baptism
- anthropologyanthropology, fieldwork, ethnography, social anthropology, cultural anthropology
- African traditionsnaming ceremony, ancestral worship, tribal chiefs, healing rituals, naming ceremonies
initiation ritefarewell ceremony
Event honoring departure
funeral rite · death rite · retirement ceremony · send-off · last rites
initiation riteexcommunication
Formal barring from sacraments
expulsion · banishment · exile · ostracism · shunning
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