Hereditary

3 definitions found

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

  Hereditary \He*red"i*ta*ry\, a. [L. hereditarius, fr. hereditas
     heirship, inheritance, fr. heres heir: cf. F.
     h['e]r['e]ditaire. See {Heir}.]
     1. Descended, or capable of descending, from an ancestor to
        an heir at law; received or passing by inheritance, or
        that must pass by inheritance; as, an hereditary estate or


        crown.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Transmitted, or capable of being transmitted, as a
        constitutional quality or condition from a parent to a
        child; as, hereditary pride, bravery, disease.
  
     Syn: Ancestral; patrimonial; inheritable.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  hereditary
       adj 1: tending to occur among members of a family usually by
              heredity; "an inherited disease"; "familial traits";
              "genetically transmitted features" [syn: {familial}, {genetic},
               {inherited}, {transmitted}, {transmissible}]
       2: inherited or inheritable by established rules (usually legal
          rules) of descent; "ancestral home"; "ancestral lore";
          "hereditary monarchy"; "patrimonial estate";
          "transmissible tradition" [syn: {ancestral}, {patrimonial},
           {transmissible}]

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

  43 Moby Thesaurus words for "hereditary":
     ancestral, atavistic, bequeathed, bodily, born, coeval, congenital,
     connatal, connate, connatural, constitutional, genetic, genic,
     handed down, heritable, in the blood, inborn, inbred, incarnate,
     indigenous, inheritable, inherited, innate, instinctive,
     instinctual, matroclinous, native, native to, natural, natural to,
     organic, patrimonial, patroclinous, physical, plasmatic, plasmic,
     primal, protoplasmic, temperamental, traditional, transferable,
     transmissible, willed