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heritage

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Property that is or can be inherited; an inheritance.
  • noun Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.
  • noun The status acquired by a person through birth; a birthright.
  • noun A domesticated animal or a crop of a traditional breed, usually not widely produced for commercial purposes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That which is inherited as a material possession; an inheritance or inherited estate; specifically, in Scots law, heritable estate; realty.
  • noun That which is given or received as a permanent possession or right; that which is allotted or appropriated; hence, portion; part: used in the Bible for the chosen people, the body of saints, or the church, as God's portion of mankind.
  • noun That which comes from the circumstances of birth; a condition or quality transmitted by ancestors; inherited lot or portion: as, a heritage of luxury, poverty, suffering, or shame.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective That which is inherited, or passes from heir to heir; inheritance.
  • adjective (Script.) A possession; the Israelites, as God's chosen people; also, a flock under pastoral charge.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An inheritance; property that may be inherited.
  • noun A tradition; something that can be passed down from preceding generations.
  • noun A birthright; the status acquired by birth, especially of but not exclusive to the firstborn.
  • noun attributive Having a certain background, such as growing up with a second language.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner
  • noun hereditary succession to a title or an office or property
  • noun any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors
  • noun practices that are handed down from the past by tradition

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from eritier, heir, from Medieval Latin hērēditārius, from Latin, inherited; see hereditary.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French héritage, from Latin hereditas.

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Examples

Comments

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  • vanishedone commented on the word heritage

    From http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/

    'For the purposes of this Convention, the following shall be considered as "cultural heritage":

    'monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

    'groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;

    'sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.'

    October 21, 2007