inheritance
noun
Simple meaning
A title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnhehruhtuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈhɛɹətəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
That which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner
countable
That which a person is entitled to inherit, by law or testament, such as the part of an estate (i.e., a portion).
uncountableespecially linguisticsbiology
The act or mechanism of inheriting; the state of having inherited.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: That which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner
Used this way, inheritance is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use inheritance
- “My only inheritance was my mother's blessing.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A tax on the estate of the deceased person.
A theory of how characteristics of one generation are derived from earlier generations.
Hereditary pattern in which a dominant gene on the X chromosome causes a characteristic to be manifested in the offspring.
Hereditary pattern in which a recessive gene on the X chromosome results in the manifestation of characteristics in male offspring and a carrier state in female offspring.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: that which is inherited
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.