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Heir apparent
noun
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Someone who will definitely inherit if surviving the one whose property is to be inherited. usually
"[…] for Mary, though perfectly resolved against ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, was long in finding among the dashing representatives, or idle heir apparents, who were at the command of her beauty, and her 20,000l. any one who could satisfy the better taste she had acquired at Mansfield, whose character and manners could authorise a hope of the domestic happiness she had there learnt to estimate, or put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head."
- 2 an heir whose right to an inheritance cannot be defeated if that person outlives the ancestor wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English heier apparaunt, a calque translation of Middle French héritier apparent, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun.
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