HEIR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Heir

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/ɛr/ Listen

noun

Heir n.

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."

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."

Heir apparent. (Law.) See under Apparent.

Heir at law, one who, after his ancector's death, has a right to inherit all his intestate estate.

Heir presumptive, one who, if the ancestor should die immediately, would be his heir, but whose right to the inheritance may be defeated by the birth of a nearer relative, or by some other contingency.

verb

Heir v. t. To inherit; to succeed to. (R.) "One only daughter heired the royal state."

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Etymology of 'Heir'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Heir" Quotes from Famous Books

... Cournot, has witnessed a mighty effort to "reintegrer l'homme dans la nature." From divers quarters there has been a methodical reaction against the persistent dualism of the Cartesian tradition, which was itself the unconscious heir of the Christian tradition. Even the philosophy of the eighteenth century, materialistic as were for the most part the tendencies of its leaders, seemed to revere man as a being apart, concerning whom laws might be formulated a priori. To bring him down ...

— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... Scotland, Ross and Sutherland, had absorbed the Hebrides and stretched unbroken into two thousand miles of plain and mountain range—Britain no longer but Atlantis come again and all British soil? It was to nothing less miraculous that the thirteen original States fell heir. And what would be the effect on the ...

— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... out the gipsies, was a good prince to the Comprachicos. We have seen why. The Comprachicos were buyers of the human wares in which he was dealer. They excelled in disappearances. Disappearances are occasionally necessary for the good of the state. An inconvenient heir of tender age whom they took and handled lost his shape. This facilitated confiscation; the tranfer of titles to favourites was simplified. The Comprachicos were, moreover, very discreet and very taciturn. They bound themselves to silence, and kept their word, which ...

— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... called by everybody pending the arrival of years which should make him a universal uncle, to be known of all men as "Uncle Larry"—was as pleasant a travelling companion as one could wish. He was the only son and heir of a father, now no more, but vaguely understood when alive and in the flesh to have been "in the China trade"—although whether this meant crockery or Cathay no one was able with precision to declare. Larry Laughton ...

— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... eminent Worcestershire stone-china maker. Save such ludicrous hunts as they might have seen on their brown jugs, we do not believe either of them had any acquaintance whatever with the chase. Old Puffington was, however, what a wise heir esteems a great deal more—an excellent man of business, and amassed mountains of money. To see his establishment at Stepney, one would think the whole world was going to be starched. Enormous dock-tailed dray-horses emerged with ponderous waggons heaped up to ...

— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

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