Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
folk memory. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
folk memory, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
folk memory in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
folk memory you have here. The definition of the word
folk memory will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
folk memory, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Noun
folk memory (usually uncountable, plural folk memories)
- (uncountable) The collective lore, beliefs, and traditional stories which help to define a society, culture, or nation.
- 1988 Aug. 21, Julia O'Faolain, "Bard of the Bar" (review of A Letter to Peachtree and Nine Other Stories by Benedict Kiely), New York Times (retrieved 8 June 2014):
- That leisured past . . . is insistently evoked in Mr. Kiely's new collection. A compendium of folk memory, it features great bursts of balladry and doggerel.
1997 June 3, Ruth Dudley Edwards, “No need to apologise for the potato famine”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 8 June 2014:James Wilson would have been bewildered and horrified to learn that 150 years later Britain is credited in the Irish folk memory—and general liberal opinion—with callously allowing a million people to starve to death.
2011 October 18, Peter Beresford, “Harassing people on benefits degrades us all”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 8 June 2014:Arguments about the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor . . . underpinned the popular fear and loathing of the workhouse that endure in folk memory.
- (countable) A belief, traditional story, or the like, which is common to the people of a particular culture; especially, such a belief or piece of knowledge that is not consciously held but is nonetheless known.
1898, The Scottish Review, volume XXXII, page 126:But behind these folk-memories of national history, extending over more than a thousand years, there is, in the popular consciousness, a dim background of a far earlier period.
1913 December 20, The Fitzroy City Press, Melbourne, page 4, column 5:In the island of Lewis, librations were offered, to "Shoney," a sea fairy, in order to bring seaweed, this being a folk-memory of an ancient sea god or goddess, to whom offerings of ale were made by the Vikings at Halloween.
2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 186:Did the watchers retain a folk memory that they themselves resulted from a mating of different types: a black human and a pale Neanderthal?
References