inheritance
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
the money, property, or things you receive from someone when they die.
the assets, including money and property, that an individual is entitled to receive from an estate by law or through a will.
Simple“She used her inheritance from her grandfather to pay for her university tuition.”
In context“The siblings spent months in legal mediation over the distribution of their father's inheritance, specifically regarding the family estate in the countryside.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
the act of receiving money or property from someone who has died.
the legal or social mechanism of passing titles, debts, rights, and obligations to a legal heir.
Simple“The laws of inheritance vary significantly from one country to another.”
In context“The historian argued that the strict rules of inheritance in the eighteenth century prevented the fragmentation of large agricultural estates.”
Synonyms - 03 B2 Upper Intermediate
the physical qualities or health conditions you get from your parents through your genes.
the biological process or result of transmitting genetic characteristics from parents to offspring.
Simple“Eye colour is a matter of biological inheritance from your mother and father.”
In context“Researchers are studying the complex patterns of genetic inheritance that contribute to certain autoimmune disorders in the population.”
Synonymshereditygenetics - 04 C1 Advanced
a way in computer coding where one part of a program gets its features from another part.
the mechanism in object-oriented programming where a subclass acquires the properties and behaviours of a superclass.
Simple“The programmer used inheritance to create a new type of button that kept the same style as the old one.”
In context“By leveraging class inheritance, the developers were able to reduce code redundancy and ensure a consistent interface across the entire software suite.”
Usage inheritance tax
“I learned to value my cultural inheritance and bring Jamaica’s landscapes on to the page.”
“Seen through this lens, sleep, exercise and diet stop looking like three separate pieces of lifestyle advice and become different ways of caring for the same biological inheritance.”
Inherited from Middle English enheritaunce, inheritaunce, borrowed from Anglo-Norman, Old French enheritaunce, from enheriter. By surface analysis, inherit + -ance.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.