# inheritance

/ˌɪnˈhɛɹətəns/ (US) · /ɪnhˈɛɹɪtəns/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/inheritance
Updated: 2026-07-22

## Senses

### 1. money or property received

noun · CEFR B2

the money, property, or things you receive from someone when they die.

For teachers: the assets, including money and property, that an individual is entitled to receive from an estate by law or through a will.

- She used her inheritance from her grandfather to pay for her university tuition.
- The siblings spent months in legal mediation over the distribution of their father's inheritance, specifically regarding the family estate in the countryside.

### 2. the process of receiving

noun · CEFR B2

the act of receiving money or property from someone who has died.

For teachers: the legal or social mechanism of passing titles, debts, rights, and obligations to a legal heir.

- The laws of inheritance vary significantly from one country to another.
- The historian argued that the strict rules of inheritance in the eighteenth century prevented the fragmentation of large agricultural estates.

### 3. biological traits

noun · CEFR B2

the physical qualities or health conditions you get from your parents through your genes.

For teachers: the biological process or result of transmitting genetic characteristics from parents to offspring.

- Eye colour is a matter of biological inheritance from your mother and father.
- Researchers are studying the complex patterns of genetic inheritance that contribute to certain autoimmune disorders in the population.

### 4. programming structure

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a way in computer coding where one part of a program gets its features from another part.

For teachers: the mechanism in object-oriented programming where a subclass acquires the properties and behaviours of a superclass.

- The programmer used inheritance to create a new type of button that kept the same style as the old one.
- By leveraging class inheritance, the developers were able to reduce code redundancy and ensure a consistent interface across the entire software suite.

## Examples

- She used her inheritance to buy a small house in the country.
- The lawyer explained that the inheritance would be divided equally among the three surviving children.
- While the legal inheritance provided financial security, the family's cultural inheritance proved far more influential in shaping his artistic development and social values.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.