Find the word definition

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
folkways

coined 1906 in a book of the same name by U.S. sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910); see folk (n.) + way (n.).\n\nFolkways are habits of the individual and customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy needs. ... Then they become regulative for succeeding generations and take on the character of a social force.

[Sumner, "Folkways"]

\nSumner also often is credited with ethnocentrism, which is found in the same book but is older.
Wiktionary
folkways

n. (plural of folkway English)

Wikipedia
Folkways

Folkways can refer to:

  • Folkways (sociology), in sociology, are norms for routine or casual interaction
  • Folkways Records, a record label founded by Moe Asch in 1948
    • Verve Folkways, an offshoot of Folkways Records formed in 1964
    • Smithsonian Folkways, the record label of the Smithsonian Institution, which incorporated Folkways Records in 1987
      • Folkways: The Original Vision, a 1989 album produced by Smithsonian Folkways documenting the origins of Folkways Records
      • Folkways: The Original Vision (Woody and LeadBelly), a 2005 expanded version of the 1989 album
  • Folkways: A Vision Shared, a 1988 album produced by CBS paying tribute to American musicians Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly

Usage examples of "folkways".

Being Olivia, she immediately presented her credentials as an amateur student of old folkways and preservationist of endangered cultural treasures.

Pleased with their ferocious folkways, she had joined the game with no weapons save her own transvolutionary gifts, shifting just outside their space to make herself invisible in ambush, levitating in pursuit, killing with her nimbus.

He had become sophisticated in the folkways of this planet, enough not to attract attention, and even had a new ID card, quite as good as a real one.

Christianity, or of Western civilization, or of Indo-European folkways, or of Anglo-American culture.

The ancient folkways of England called to them, albeit the call came ever more and more faintly since the war, as the plowlands grew depleted of their young blood and the new generation swarmed over the cities instead.

Reichart Station would be a community of its own, with its own customs and folkways, by now.

It had actually been interesting to live among the northern Indigenes, not just a fugitive but also an observer studying the folkways of this intelligent and appealing race, but that was over, now.

First, here is that astringent graphic commentator on the contemporary mores and folkways of these United States, the inimitable Joe Chuck.

The awsome rep Border Mex gals enjoyed for being dangerous to cross was largely due to the Indian blood and folkways so many of them denied.