Inheritance
[ɪn'herɪt(ə)ns] or [ɪn'hɛrɪtəns]
Definition
(noun.) hereditary succession to a title or an office or property.
(noun.) any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors; 'my only inheritance was my mother's blessing'; 'the world's heritage of knowledge'.
(noun.) (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from the parents.
(noun.) that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner.
Editor: Zeke--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.
(n.) 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.
(n.) A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.
(n.) Possession; ownership; acquisition.
(n.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.
(n.) 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.
Typist: Stacey
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Inheriting.[2]. Heritage, patrimony.
Checked by Gardner
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:bequest, legacy, heritage, hereditament, patrimony, possession
ANT:Purchase, donation, acquisition, dissipation, alienation, forfeiture, lapse,escheatment
Typed by Kate
Unserious Contents or Definition
To dream that you receive an inheritance, foretells that you will be successful in easily obtaining your desires. See Estate.
Edited by Ian
Examples
- What a wrong, to cut off the girl from the family protection and inheritance only because she had chosen a man who was poor! George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- With regard to myself, this came almost by inheritance. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and restored through me! Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- Most of its motives are purely instinctive, and all the mental life that it has is the result of heredity (birth inheritance). H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- They came into this inheritance of a previous civilization with the ideas and traditions of the woodlands still strong in their minds. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Let him bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a young bride and a rich inheritance. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- I am very rich, and they want my inheritance--or very poor, and they are tired of supporting me. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- A great sum of money is waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all henceforth very wealthy. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
- From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- The Colonel was busy arranging the affairs of the inheritance. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- The real affinities of all organic beings, in contradistinction to their adaptive resemblances, are due to inheritance or community of descent. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- Miss Crawley, the rich aunt from whom he expected his immense inheritance, was dying; the Colonel must haste to her bedside. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- The town was also the chief capitalist; as a seller of annuities on lives and inheritances it was a banker and enjoyed unlimited credit. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Edited by Edith