hereditary
/həˈɹɛdɪt(ə)ɹi/
hereditary means passed on as an inheritance, by last will or intestate. It carries an Arena rating of 1488, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hereditary ranks #2,008 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,153 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #3,117 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #4,759 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
hereditary is pronounced /həˈɹɛdɪt(ə)ɹi/.
Why “hereditary” is a great word
Passed on or legally granted from an ancestor to a descendant. From the Latin hērēditārius, from hērēditās ("inheritance"), from hērēs ("heir"). Unlike "congenital" (which marks a condition present from birth, however caused) or "acquired" (which denotes a lifetime's accumulation), hereditary speaks of a chain of transmission, a tether through time. It is the specific shade of blue in a grandfather's eyes reappearing in a newborn's squint, the document that transfers a crumbling estate and its attendant debts, and the silent clockwork of a disease waiting in the blood—the quiet, inescapable recognition that we arrive already owned by the past.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English hereditarie, from Latin hērēditārius, from hērēditās (“inheritance”), from hērēs (“heir”).
adj
- Passed on as an inheritance, by last will or intestate.
- Of a title, honor or right: legally granted to somebody's descendant after that person's death.e.g.“Duke is a hereditary title which was created in Norman times.”
- Of a person: holding a legally hereditary title or rank.e.g.“hereditary rulers”
- Of a disease or trait: passed from a parent to offspring in the genes.e.g.“Haemophilia is hereditary in his family.”
- Of a ring: such that all submodules of projective modules over the ring are also projective.
- Of a property of graphs: such that if G has the property, so must every induced subgraph of G.
noun
- A hereditary ruler; a hereditary peer in the House of Lords.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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