heir

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  A SON AND HEIR
• WordNet 3.6
  • n heir a person who is entitled by law or by the terms of a will to inherit the estate of another
  • n heir a person who inherits some title or office
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Additional illustrations & photos:

Eating apples and crying over the "Heir of Redclyffe"

• Interesting fact: A 27 year old heir to a sausage empire was handed a ticket for 116,000 pounds for driving at 80 km/hr in a 40 km/hr zone. This is because the speeding tickets in Finland are based on how much money a person makes
• • Heir 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."
  • Heir 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."
  • v. t Heir To inherit; to succeed to. "One only daughter heired the royal state."
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• Interesting fact: If Monaco's ruling house of Grimaldi should ever be without an heir (male or female), the country will cease to be a sovereign state.
• • n heir One who inherits, or has a right of inheritance in, the property of another; one who receives, or is entitled to receive, possession of property or a vested right on the death of its owner, either as his natural or as his legal successor.
  • n heir Technically, in law, the person upon whom the law casts an estate in real property immediately on the death of the ancestor, as distinguished from one who takes by will as a legatee or devisee, and from one who succeeds by law to personal property as next of kin. The same person who is heir when considered with reference to realty is often also next of kin when considered with reference to personalty: and where a testator's will disposes of part only of his realty, the same person who takes under the will as devisee may also take an undisposed-of part as heir. In this sense the word as used at common law does not include a widow on whom the law casts an estate in dower, or a husband on whom the law casts an estate by the courtesy, for these are considered new estates, arising out of marriage and its incidents, and carved out of the fee, not as a continuation or devolution of the fee itself. If there be dower or courtesy, the heir is that person who takes immediate title to the fee, subject to such life-estate. In legal phrase heir and heir at law are commonly used in England in the singular, because the general rule of descent there has given the entire estate to the eldest male. The singular is also not uncommonly used in the United States to designate whoever may be entitled, whether one or more, because of English usage, and because appropriate in all cases where there is but one standing in the nearest degree to the deceased.
  • n heir In a broader sense, in those jurisdictions where the distinction between realty and personalty is disregarded, the person entitled by law to succeed one dying in respect of either kind of property, as distinguished from those taking by will. In jurisdictions where the distinction is preserved, a testamentary gift of personalty, expressed to be to one's heirs, is commonly understood to intend his next of kin.
  • n heir In another extended sense, one in a series of heirs; any successive inheritor, including not only him who takes immediately upon the death of the ancestor, but also those who have inherited through several successive descents, In the most general sense, the person upon whom property of any kind devolves on the death of another, either by law or by will. Thus, the children of a person deceased are popularly spoken of as his heirs, irrespective of the nature of the property or the mode in which it passed. In much this sense heres was used in the Roman law.
  • n heir One who inherits anything; one who receives any endowment by inheritance or transmission.
  • n heir A child regarded with reference to anything due to his parentage; an offspring in general.
  • heir To inherit; succeed to.
  • n heir children and lawful descendants;
  • n heir parents and lawful ascendants;
  • n heir collateral kindred.
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• Interesting fact: Salim (1569-1627, heir to the throne of India, had 4 wives when he was only 8 years of age.
• • n Heir ār one who inherits anything after the death of the owner: one entitled to anything after the present possessor: a child, offspring
  • v.t Heir to inherit
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• William Ellery Channing

  

  “God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.”
• Thomas Traherne

  

  “Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?”
• Thomas Fuller

  

  “The patient is not likely to recover who makes the doctor his heir.”
• (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal

  

  “A third heir seldom enjoys what has been dishonestly acquired.”
• Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

  

  “The weeping of an heir is laughter in disguise.”
• Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  

  “Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.”

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