Definitions for: Inheritance


[n] hereditary succession to a title or an office or property
[n] any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors; "my only inheritance was my mother's blessing"; "the world's heritage of knowledge"
[n] (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from the parents
[n] that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner



Webster (1913) Definition: In*her"it*ance, n. [Cf. OF. enheritance.]
1. The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an
estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.

2. That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived
by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a
possession which passes by descent.

When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto
the daughter. --Shak.

3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one
received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away. --1 Pet. i. 4.

4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. ``The inheritance of
their loves.'' --Shak.

To you th' inheritance belongs by right Of brother's
praise; to you eke ?longs his love. --Spenser.

5. (Biol.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant
generation.

6. (Law) A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his
heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by
descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to
another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to
an heir in course of law. --Blackstone.

Note: The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined
to the title to land and tenements by a descent.
--Mozley & W.

Men are not proprietors of what they have, merely
for themselves; their children have a title to
part of it which comes to be wholly theirs when
death has put an end to their parents' use of it;
and this we call inheritance. --Locke.

Synonyms: hereditary pattern, heritage, heritage, heritage

See Also: accretion, acquisition, ancestry, attribute, background, bequest, birthright, birthright, borough English, derivation, devise, filiation, gene linkage, genetic endowment, heirloom, heredity, legacy, lineage, linkage, patrimony, primogeniture, transferred possession, transferred property, upbringing, X-linked dominant inheritance, X-linked recessive inheritance

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