From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishrite of passagerite of passageSSYTRADITIONa special ceremony or action that is a sign of a new stage in someone’s life, especially when a boy starts to become a man → coming of age → rite
Examples from the Corpus
rite of passage• For many fans, metal, with its pile-driving sound and locker-room lyrics, is more than a rite of passage.• A rite of passage, as it were.• Boyhood pledges and rites of passage, boy pages learning skills of survival from men of iron.• After the umpteenth rubber-stamp this infuriating rite of passage, as it were, terminates: exit.• Marriage, though not the social imperative it once was, still stands for a major rite of passage into adult life.• This idyllic feeling of romance seemed too much like a temporary state, a schoolboy rite of passage.• Finishing the race is the rite of passage of the distance runner.• One lucky trainee was spared the rite of passage. 