stirps
[sturps]
- a stock; family or branch of a family; line of descent.
- Law. a person from whom a family is descended.
- Biology Now Rare. a family, superfamily, or permanent variety.
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Origin of stirps
1675–85; < Latin: rootstock, trunk
per stirpes
[pur stur-peez, per]
- pertaining to or noting a method of dividing an estate in which the descendants of a deceased person share as a group in the portion of the estate to which the deceased would have been entitled.
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Compare per capita(def 2).
Origin of per stirpes
First recorded in 1675–85, per stirpes is from the Latin word per stirpēs literally, by stocks
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for stirpes
Historical Examples
These subtribes are both further resolvable into two or more races (Stirpes).
An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. IV (of 4)William Kirby
stirps
- genealogy a line of descendants from an ancestor; stock or strain
- botany a race or variety, esp one in which the characters are maintained by cultivation
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Word Origin
C17: from Latin: root, family origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for stirpes
plural of stirps, Latin, literally "stem, stalk."
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per stirpes
Latin, "by families, by stocks;" in legal use, for inheritances, etc., opposed to per capita.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper