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 drug prevents attacks of hereditary angioedema, which causes recurrent and severe swelling of body parts.

From The Wall Street Journal

Today, psychiatrists emphasize mental illness’s biological and hereditary origin, which forms the basis for many treatments.

From The Wall Street Journal

Labour has signalled it will significantly water down plans for reform, possibly limiting them to phasing out hereditary peers.

From BBC

A University of Kansas study of rare gene mutations that cause hereditary Alzheimer's disease shows these mutations disrupt production of a small sticky protein called amyloid.

From Science Daily

The recent approval of a CRISPR-Cas9 therapy for sickle cell disease demonstrates that gene editing tools can do a superb job knocking out genes to cure hereditary disease.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• genetic
• inborn
• transmitted