Beginning of traditional ceremony, lacking originality (5)
I believe the answer is:
trite
'lacking originality' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'beginning of traditional ceremony' is the wordplay.
'beginning of' says to take the initial letters.
'ceremony' becomes 'rite' (rite is a kind of ceremony).
The first letter of 'traditional' is 't'.
't'+'rite'='TRITE'
(Other definitions for trite that I've seen before include "Overfamiliar through overuse" , "all vigour is gone" , "Banal, commonplace" , "used till novelty's worn off" , "Commonplace, hackneyed" .)