Etymology

Old French enheriter, from Late Latin inhereditare ("make heir").

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪn'hɛrɪt/
• Audio (US) ^[?]
• Rhymes: -ɛrɪt

Verb

to inherit (third-person singular simple present inherits, present participle inheriting, simple past and past participle inherited)

1. (transitive) To take possession of as a right (especially in Biblical translations).
   
   Your descendants will inherit the earth.
   
   
2. (transitive) To receive (property or a title etc), by legal succession or bequest after the previous owner's death.
   
   After Grandad died, I inherited the house.
   
   
3. (transitive) (biology) To receive a characteristic from one's ancestors by genetic transmission.
   
   Let's hope the baby inherits his mother's looks and his father's intelligence.
   
   
4. (transitive) To derive from people or conditions previously in force.
   
   This country has inherited an invidious class culture.
   
   
5. (intransitive) to come into an inheritance.
   
   Lucky old Daniel - his parents were both killed, and he's inherited.
   
   
6. (computing, programming, transitive) To derive (existing functionality) from a superclass.
   
   ModalWindow inherits all the properties and methods of Window.
   
   
7. (computing, programming, transitive) To derive a new class from (a superclass).
   
   * 2006, Daniel Solis, Illustrated C# 2005
   For example, the following two code segments, from different assemblies, show how easy it is to inherit a class from another assembly.

Derived terms

• inheritable
• inheritance
• inherited
• inheritor

This entry is from Wiktionary - Dictionary and thesaurus. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.