Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A valued possession passed down in a family through succeeding generations.
- noun Law An article of personal property that passes by custom along with the estate to an heir, instead of being subject to the executor of the estate.
- noun Botany A cultivar of a vegetable or fruit that is open-pollinated and is not grown widely for commercial purposes. An heirloom often exhibits a distinctive characteristic such as superior flavor or unusual coloration.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In English law, a personal chattel that, contrary to the nature of chattels, by special custom descends to an heir with the inheritance, being such a thing as cannot be separated from the estate without injury to it, as jewels of the crown, charters, deeds, and the like. The term is sometimes loosely applied to personal property left by will or settled so as to descend like an heirloom proper; such property is distinctively called an heirloom by devise or a quasi-heirloom.
- noun Hence Any personal possession that passes from generation to generation in a family or a community; any article or characteristic transmitted by ancestors.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Any furniture, movable, or personal chattel, which by law or special custom descends to the heir along with the inheritance; any piece of personal property that has been in a family for several generations.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
valued possession that has beenpassed down through thegenerations . - noun A
crop variety that has been passed down through generations of farmers by seed saving and cultivation.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun something that has been in a family for generations
- noun (law) any property that is considered by law or custom as inseparable from an inheritance is inherited with that inheritance
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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You've probably heard of the term heirloom somewhere before (my guess is having to do with antiques or tomatoes) -- Griffith calls it something that will not only last through your lifetime and into the next generation, but that you also want to keep that long because it's beautiful, functional, and timeless.
Energy Bulletin - kristinsponsler 2010
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I've also become very interested in heirloom seeds.
Alice Walker: On Finding Your Bliss Interview by Evelyn C. White 2010
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Your most precious family heirloom is the shotgun used at your grandparents 'wedding.
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Other gifts are given as investments - an heirloom is essentially a saftey deposit against hard times in the future or a down payment on a house, car or holiday.
The value of gifts (or 'What Star Trek taught me about capitalism') Jonathan 2005
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Other gifts are given as investments - an heirloom is essentially a saftey deposit against hard times in the future or a down payment on a house, car or holiday.
Archive 2005-01-01 Jonathan 2005
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This was inspired by a magnificent calendar stone, which still stands as an heirloom from the Aztecs, whose calendar was based on the conjunctions of
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An excrescent t survives in a number of words, e. g., onct, twict, clost, wisht (for wish) and chanct; it is an heirloom from the English of two centuries ago.
Chapter 9. The Common Speech. 10. Vulgar Pronunciation Henry Louis 1921
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If the perspective of the longevity of an instrument's "working life" is taken into consideration, the short time to seek out and find a Luthier that will have the ability and appreciation to make the heirloom is short indeed.
Mandolin Cafe News 2009
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If the perspective of the longevity of an instrument's "working life" is taken into consideration, the short time to seek out and find a Luthier that will have the ability and appreciation to make the heirloom is short indeed.
Mandolin Cafe News 2009
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The name heirloom refers to how the seeds of some tomato varieties were passed on for generations, and there's widespread agreement among tomato lovers that heirloom tomatoes are often more flavorful than hybrid varieties.
BlogHer 2009
Prolagus commented on the word heirloom
("Heirloom", by Sufjan Stephens)
March 8, 2011