hereditary

American  

[huh-red-i-ter-ee] / həˈrɛd ɪˌtɛr i /

adjective

1. passing, or capable of passing, naturally from parent to offspring through the genes.

   Blue eyes are hereditary in our family.

2. of or relating to inheritance or heredity.

   a hereditary title.

3. existing by reason of feeling, opinions, or prejudices held by predecessors.

   a hereditary enemy.

   Synonyms:

   traditional, ancestral

4. Law.

   1. descending by inheritance.

   2. transmitted or transmissible in the line of descent by force of law.

   3. holding title, rights, etc., by inheritance.

      a hereditary proprietor.

5. Mathematics.

   1. (of a collection of sets) signifying that each subset of a set in the collection is itself a set in the collection.

   2. of or relating to a mathematical property, as containing a greatest integer, applicable to every subset of a set that has the property.

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hereditary British  

/ -trɪ, hɪˈrɛdɪtərɪ /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or denoting factors that can be transmitted genetically from one generation to another

2. law

   1. descending or capable of descending to succeeding generations by inheritance

   2. transmitted or transmissible according to established rules of descent

3. derived from one's ancestors; traditional

   hereditary feuds

4. maths logic

   1. (of a set) containing all those elements which have a given relation to any element of the set

   2. (of a property) transferred by the given relation, so that if x has the property P and xRy, then y also has the property P

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hereditary Scientific  

/ hə-rĕd′ĭ-tĕr′ē /

1. Passed or capable of being passed from parent to offspring by means of genes.

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hereditary Cultural  

1. A descriptive term for conditions capable of being transmitted from parent to offspring through the genes. The term hereditary is applied to diseases such as hemophilia and characteristics such as the tendency toward baldness that pass from parents to children.

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Related Words

See innate.

Other Word Forms

• hereditarily adverb
• hereditariness noun
• nonhereditarily adverb
• nonhereditariness noun
• nonhereditary adjective
• quasi-hereditary adjective

Etymology

Origin of hereditary

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Latin hērēditārius “relating to inheritance,” equivalent to hērēdit(ās) “inheritance,” heredity + -ārius -ary

Example Sentences

The end is nigh for hereditary peers, whose inherited right to sit in the House of Lords is set to be stripped from them after the passage of a new law this week.

From BBC

The brothers’ strained relationship is both an ordinary story of siblings growing apart and a referendum on the world’s most famous hereditary institution.

From The Wall Street Journal

Dozens of hereditary peers are set to lose their seats in the House of Lords, after the passage of a bill that will end a parliamentary role dating back hundreds of years.

From BBC

With even weaker religious credentials than his father, Mr. Khamenei owes his accession to the hereditary principle despised by the 1979 revolution.

From The Wall Street Journal

His appointment also goes against a long-held notion in the Islamic Republic that hereditary rule is a sin practiced by un-Islamic monarchies.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• genetic
• inborn
• transmitted