📖 Meaning
To follow an existing practice over time until it becomes a customary tradition. It describes how habits or conventions are passed down through generations and eventually solidify into established folk customs. The idiom emphasizes the gradual, accumulative nature of how social customs form.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom has no single definitive origin text; it is a common expression that crystallized from longstanding observations of how social practices evolve. The concept reflects a truth recognized across Chinese dynasties: when people repeatedly follow a particular way of doing things, it gradually hardens into custom. Similar ideas appear in texts from the Han dynasty onward, where scholars noted how regional practices became ingrained over time. The phrase encapsulates the organic process by which repeated convention becomes cultural norm.
💡 Example Usage
春节贴春联的习俗相沿成俗，至今已有千年历史。
The custom of pasting spring couplets during the Spring Festival has been passed down and become a tradition, with a history of over a thousand years.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 相沿成俗
- Pinyin: xiāng yán chéng sú
- Literal Translation: mutually, follow, become, custom
- Category: Lifestyle
- Characters: 4