HEIR • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Heir

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/ɛr/ Listen

noun

Heir n.

One who inherits, or is entitled to succeed to the possession of, any property after the death of its owner; one on whom the law bestows the title or property of another at the death of the latter. "I am my father's heir and only son."

One who receives any endowment from an ancestor or relation; as, the heir of one's reputation or virtues. "And I his heir in misery alone."

Heir apparent. (Law.) See under Apparent.

Heir at law, one who, after his ancector's death, has a right to inherit all his intestate estate.

Heir presumptive, one who, if the ancestor should die immediately, would be his heir, but whose right to the inheritance may be defeated by the birth of a nearer relative, or by some other contingency.

verb

Heir v. t. To inherit; to succeed to. (R.) "One only daughter heired the royal state."

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Etymology of 'Heir'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Heir" Quotes from Famous Books

... overjoyed that it was hard for him to be as solemn about the house as he ought to have been, in view of the fact that Uncle Loren had been taken suddenly and violently ill. Eddie was the natural heir to ...

— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... to lecture me," said the Man, "me, the heir of all the ages, as the poet called me. Why, you nasty little animal, do you know that I have killed hundreds like you, and," he added, with a sudden afflatus of pride, "thousands of other creatures, such as pheasants, to say nothing of deer and larger game? That has been my principal ...

— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... care of the Mordaunts. The child is kidnapped and Dan tracks the child to the house where she is hidden, and rescues her. The wealthy aunt of the little heiress is so delighted with Dan's courage and many good qualities that she adopts him as her heir. ...

— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... continued his journey; but whatever they may be supposed to have been, they were laid in connection with the voyage, not founded on the chance of its interruption. It is easy to imagine a man like him, averse to the shedding of blood, intending interference for their lives: as heir apparent, he would certainly have been listened to. The tone of his reply to Horatio is that of one who has been made the unintending cause of a deserved fate: the thing having fallen out so, the Divinity having so shaped their ends, there was nothing in their character, any more than in ...

— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... will, not so much on their own account, as for the sake of standing well in the world, in whose opinion he knew he had suffered by his treachery towards them in the matter of their farm. She found her husband seated in an old arm-chair, which, having been an heir-loom in the family for many a long year, had, with one or two other things, been purchased in at the sheriff's sale. There was that chair, which had come down to them from three or four generations; ...

— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

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