- rite (n.)
- early 14c., from Latin ritus "religious observance or ceremony, custom, usage," perhaps from PIE root *re(i)- "to count, number" (source also of Greek arithmos "number," Old English rim "number;" see read (v.)). Rite of passage (1909) is translated from French rite de passage, coined by French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957).
