Birthright

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Birthright \Birth"right`\, n.
     Any right, privilege, or possession to which a person is
     entitled by birth, such as an estate descendible by law to an
     heir, or civil liberty under a free constitution; esp. the
     rights or inheritance of the first born.
     [1913 Webster]


  
           Lest there be any . . . profane person, as Esau, who
           for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. --Heb. xii.
                                                    16.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  birthright
       n 1: a right or privilege that you are entitled to at birth;
            "free public education is the birthright of every
            American child"
       2: an inheritance coming by right of birth (especially by
          primogeniture) [syn: {patrimony}]
       3: personal characteristics that are inherited at birth

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  52 Moby Thesaurus words for "birthright":
     appanage, appurtenance, authority, bequeathal, bequest,
     borough-English, claim, coheirship, conjugal right, coparcenary,
     demand, divine right, droit, due, entail, faculty, gavelkind,
     heirloom, heirship, hereditament, heritable, heritage, heritance,
     inalienable right, incorporeal hereditament, inheritance, interest,
     law of succession, legacy, line of succession, mode of succession,
     natural right, patrimony, perquisite, postremogeniture, power,
     prerogative, prescription, presumptive right, pretense, pretension,
     primogeniture, privilege, proper claim, property right, reversion,
     right, succession, title, ultimogeniture, vested interest,
     vested right
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Birthright
     (1.) This word denotes the special privileges and advantages
     belonging to the first-born son among the Jews. He became the
     priest of the family. Thus Reuben was the first-born of the
     patriarchs, and so the priesthood of the tribes belonged to him.
     That honour was, however, transferred by God from Reuben to Levi
     (Num. 3:12, 13; 8:18).
     
       (2.) The first-born son had allotted to him also a double
     portion of the paternal inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17). Reuben
     was, because of his undutiful conduct, deprived of his
     birth-right (Gen. 49:4; 1 Chr. 5:1). Esau transferred his
     birth-right to Jacob (Gen. 25:33).
     
       (3.) The first-born inherited the judicial authority of his
     father, whatever it might be (2 Chr. 21:3). By divine
     appointment, however, David excluded Adonijah in favour of
     Solomon.
     
       (4.) The Jews attached a sacred importance to the rank of
     "first-born" and "first-begotten" as applied to the Messiah
     (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18; Heb. 1:4-6). As first-born he has an
     inheritance superior to his brethren, and is the alone true
     priest.