Inheritance
//ɪnˈhɛɹɪtəns// noun
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The passing of title to an estate upon death. countable, uncountable
- 2 hereditary succession to a title or an office or property wordnet
- 3 That which a person is entitled to inherit, by law or testament, such as the part of an estate (i.e., a portion). countable
- 4 any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors wordnet
- 5 The act or mechanism of inheriting; the state of having inherited. especially, uncountable
"The Indo-European languages share various similarities as a result of their inheritance from a common ancestor."
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from the parents wordnet
- 7 The biological attributes passed hereditarily from ancestors to their offspring. countable, uncountable
- 8 that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner wordnet
- 9 The mechanism whereby parts of a superclass are available to instances of its subclass. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"He pissed away his inheritance on booze and loose women."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English enheritaunce, inheritaunce, borrowed from Anglo-Norman, Old French enheritaunce, from enheriter. By surface analysis, inherit + -ance.
Related phrases
More for "inheritance"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.