In*her"it*ance (?), n. [Cf. OF. enheritance.]
1.
The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.
2.
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.
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter.
Shak.
3.
A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
1 Pet. i. 4.
4.
Possession; ownership; acquisition.
"The
inheritance of their loves."
Shak.
To you th' inheritance belongs by right
Of brother's praise; to you eke longs his love.
Spenser.
5. Biol.
Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.
6. Law
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.
Blackstone.
The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined to the title to land and tenements by a descent.
Mozley & W.
Men are not proprietors of what they have, merely for themselves; their children have a title to part of it which comes to be wholly theirs when death has put an end to their parents' use of it; and this we call inheritance.
Locke.
© Webster 1913.