heiress

[air-is]

noun

1. a woman who inherits or has a right of inheritance, especially a woman who has inherited or will inherit considerable wealth.

heiress

/ ˈɛərɪs /

noun

1. a woman who inherits or expects to inherit great wealth

2. property law a female heir

Gender Note

See -ess.

Word History and Origins

Origin of heiress¹

First recorded in 1650–60; heir + -ess

Example Sentences

All begins sunnily, however, in the year 1899, when Evelyn, a self-confessed hack writer of travel books, with one failed novel to his name, marries an American heiress.

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The author of “Gravity’s Rainbow” sends a private eye on the trail of a missing heiress in a complex, comic, Prohibition-era caper.

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The magazine painted Johnson, widely known by her nickname Libet, as another spoiled American heiress with too much money and not enough purpose.

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In a scenario straight out of Dashiell Hammett’s early stories, a detective agency operative named Hicks McTaggart gets an assignment to chase down the runaway heiress to a major cheese fortune.

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Milstein, a wealthy real estate heiress, and Bank, a reality TV producer with credits including “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” bought the home for $8.35 million in 2023 with plans to tear it down.

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Related Words

• buyer 
• landowner 
• partner 
• purchaser www.thesaurus.com