1. a set of social practices and conditions considered typical of societies that are economically and technologically undeveloped, relatively static in their structures and customs, rural rather than urban, and religious rather than secular and that tend to emphasize family or collective responsibilities rather than individual rights and aspirations. The adequacy of this description and of the dichotomy between traditional and modern societies that it implies is by no means universally accepted. See modernization. See also cultural epoch theory; primitive.

2. more generally, adherence to any set of political, religious, or cultural traditions. —traditionalist n. —traditionalistic adj.