Inheritance - Dictionary Definition and Overview

Inheritance :  (noun)
1: hereditary succession to a title or an office or property [syn: heritage]
2: that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner [syn: heritage]
3: (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from the parents [syn: hereditary pattern]
4: any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors; "my only inheritance was my mother's blessing"; "the world's heritage of knowledge" [syn: heritage]

Based on WordNet 2.0

Inheritance : \In*her"it*ance\, n. [Cf. OF. enheritance.] 1. The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.

2. That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a possession which passes by descent.

When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. --Shak.

3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. --1 Pet. i. 4.

4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. ``The inheritance of their loves.'' --Shak.

To you th' inheritance belongs by right Of brother's praise; to you eke ?longs his love. --Spenser.

5. (Biol.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.

6. (Law) A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of law. --Blackstone.

Note: The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined to the title to land and tenements by a descent. --Mozley & W.

Men are not proprietors of what they have, merely for themselves; their children have a title to part of it which comes to be wholly theirs when death has put an end to their parents' use of it; and this we call inheritance. --Locke.

Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

INHERITANCE, estates. A perpetuity in lands to a man and his heirs; or it is the right to succeed to the estate of a person who died intestate. Dig. 50, 16, 24. The term is applied to lands. 2. The property which is inherited is called an inheritance. 3. The termInheritance : includes not only lands and tenements which have been acquired by descent, but also every fee simple or fee tail, which a person has acquired by purchase, may be said to be an inheritance, because the purchaser's heirs may inherit it. Litt. s. 9. 4. Estates of inheritance are divided into inheritance absolute, or fee simple; and inheritance limited, one species of which is called fee tail. They are also divided into corporeal, as houses and lands and incorporeal, commonly called incorporeal hereditaments. (q. v.) 1 Cruise, Dig. 68; Sw. 163; Poth. des Retraits, n. 2 8. 5. Among the civilians, by inheritance is understood the succession to all the rights of the deceased. It is of two kinds, 1 . That which arises by testament, when the testator gives his succession to a particular person; and, 2. That which arises by operation of law, which is called succession ab intestat. Hein. Lec. El. Sec. 484, 485.

Based on Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [Bouvier_Law_Dictionary]:

Inheritance : 

In object-oriented programming, the ability to derive new classes from existing classes. A derived class (or "subclass") inherits instance_variables_and_methods_of_the_"{base_class">the instance variables and methods of the "{base class" (or "superclass"), and may add new instance variables and methods. New methods may be defined with the same names as those in the base class, in which case they override the original one.

For example, bytes might belong to the class of integers for which an add method might be defined. The byte class would inherit the add method from the integer class.

See also Liskov substitution principle, multiple inheritance.

(2000-10-10)



Based on the Online Dictionary of Computing [Computer_Dictionary]:

Inheritance :  Inheritance: Not something that is contained in a will, but rather a gene, chromosome or genome that is transmitted from parent to child.

The pattern of inheritance is the manner in which a gene is transmitted. For example, the pattern of inheritance may be as an autosomal dominant trait that is transmitted from father or mother to son or daughter.



Based on the Online Dictionary of Computing [Computer_Dictionary]:
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