What does "birthright" mean?

Something a person is entitled to due to the circumstances of their birth, such as an inheritance or citizenship.

What is a synonym for "birthright"?

Common synonyms include: appanage, appurtenance, authority, bequeathal, bequest, borough-english.

Birthright

//ˈbɝθ.ɹaɪt// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Something a person is entitled to due to the circumstances of their birth, such as an inheritance or citizenship.
"Not only has suburban life separated the great concentrated masses of our people from their birthright of meadows, fields and woods; of Nature, in her untamed splendour and mystery, most of them have never had so much as a momentary glimpse."
2
a right or privilege that you are entitled to at birth wordnet
3
an inheritance coming by right of birth (especially by primogeniture) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

appanage appurtenance authority bequeathal bequest borough-english

Example

More examples

"Anne was one of the children of light by birthright. After she had passed through a life with a smile or a word thrown across it like a gleam of sunshine the owner of that life saw it, for the time being at least, as hopeful and lovely and of good report."

Etymology

From birth + right. Compare West Frisian berterjocht (“birthright”), Dutch geboorterecht (“birthright”), German Geburtsrecht (“birthright”). Compare also Icelandic frumburðarréttur (“birthright”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.