Any kind of teaching, written or spoken, handed down from generation to generation. In Mark 7:3, 9, 13, Colossians 2:8, this word refers to the arbitrary interpretations of the Jews. In 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6, it is used in a good sense. Peter (1 Peter 1:18) uses this word with reference to the degenerate Judaism of the "strangers scattered" whom he addresses (Comp. Acts 15:10; Matthew 15:2-6; Galatians 1:14).

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) The act of delivering into the hands of another; delivery.

2. (n.) The unwritten or oral delivery of information, opinions, doctrines, practices, rites, and customs, from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any knowledge, opinions, or practice, from forefathers to descendants by oral communication, without written memorials.

3. (n.) Hence, that which is transmitted orally from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; knowledge or belief transmitted without the aid of written memorials; custom or practice long observed.

4. (n.) An unwritten code of law represented to have been given by God to Moses on Sinai.

5. (n.) That body of doctrine and discipline, or any article thereof, supposed to have been put forth by Christ or his apostles, and not committed to writing.

6. (v. t.) To transmit by way of tradition; to hand down.