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heir at law; received or passing by inheritance, or that must pass by inheritance; as, an hereditary estate or crown.

ll orders of knights except those of the Garter. It is the lowest degree of honor that is hereditary. The baronets are commoners.

e appointed to the command of a burg (fortress or castle); but the title afterward became hereditary, with a domain attached.

One of the hereditary classes into which the Hindoos are divided according to the laws of Brahmanism.

tion, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular or organs; hereditary degradation of type.

A believer in the theory of degeneration, or hereditary degradation of type; as, the degenerationists hold that savagery is the result of degeneration from a superior state.

To cut off from an inheritance or from hereditary succession; to prevent, as an heir, from coming into possession of any property or right, which, by law or custom, would devolve on him in the course of descent. Of how fair a portion Adam disinherited his whole posterity! South.

To appoint hereditary possessor. [Obs.] To entail him and his heirs unto the crown. Shak.

A thing entailed. Brutality as an hereditary entailment becomes an ever weakening force. R. L. Dugdale.

Hereditary; entailed on a family. Arbuthnot.

By inheritance; in an hereditary manner. Pope.

Hereditary transmission of the physical and psychical qualities of parents to their offspring; the biological law by which living beings tend to repeat their characteristics in their descendants. See Pangenesis.

protoplasm which is the seat of all active changes, and which carries on the function of hereditary transmission; -- distinguished from the other portion, which is termed nutritive plasma. See Hygroplasm.

vereign; one invested with supreme authority over a nation, country, or tribe, usually by hereditary succession; a monarch; a prince. "Ay, every inch a king." Shak. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle. Burke. There was a State without king or nobles. R. Choate. But yonder comes th…

One who supports legitimate authority; esp., one who believes in hereditary monarchy, as a divine right.

Descending in a direct line from an ancestor; hereditary; derived from ancestors; -- opposed to collateral; as, a lineal descent or a lineal descendant. The prime and ancient right of lineal succession. Locke.

A character which obeys Mendel's law in regard to its hereditary transmission.

The popular designation of the hereditary sovereign of Japan.

One of the hereditary nobility among the Tatars, esp. one of the second class.

Received or derived from a father; hereditary; as, a paternal estate. Their small paternal field of corn. Dryden. Paternal government (Polit. Science), the assumption by the governing power of a quasi-fatherly relation to the people, involving strict and intimate supervision of their business and social concerns, upon…