| Inheritance 1. (n.) The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities. 2. (n.) That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a possession which passes by descent. 3. (n.) A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction. 4. (n.) Possession; ownership; acquisition. 5. (n.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation. 6. (n.) A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of law. Thesaurus Entries Altmann theory, DNA, De Vries theory, Galtonian theory, Mendelianism, Mendelism, RNA, Verworn theory, Weismann theory, Weismannism, Wiesner theory, allele, allelomorph, attested copy, bequeathal, bequest, birth, birthright, borough-English, character, chromatid, chromatin, chromosome, codicil, coheirship, coparcenary, determinant, determiner, devise, diathesis, endowment, entail, eugenics, factor, gavelkind, gene, genesiology, genetic code, genetics, heirloom, heirship, hereditability, hereditament, heredity, heritability, heritable, heritage, heritance, inborn capacity, incorporeal hereditament, inheritability, law of succession, legacy, line of succession, matrocliny, mode of succession, patrimony, patrocliny, pharmacogenetics, postremogeniture, primogeniture, probate, property, recessive character, replication, reversion, succession, testament, ultimogeniture, will |