Bequeathed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have formally transferred property or assets to another person via a will To have designated items or possessions to be received by someone following one's death To have entrusted one’s belongings to another through a testamentary document
2. To pass on possessions or estate to heirs through a legal testament after death
3. To formally transfer ownership of assets to beneficiaries by means of a will

Etymology: "Bequeathed" is the past tense and past participle of "bequeath", and the verb's older sense was much broader than handing down property. Its ancestor in Old English, "becweþan", meant simply "to say" or "to speak", and it could also mean to address, exhort, admonish or blame. Leaving something to someone by will was only one of the senses it carried, alongside the others that spoke or directed a person toward a course of action. The verb passed into Middle English as "biquethen", and the notion of speaking words over someone was gradually narrowed to the formal act of declaring what should go to whom after death. The old word also survives in Old Frisian as "biquetha", showing that the verb was shared among the West Germanic languages before English shaped it into its present form.

Synonyms: gifted, bestowed, passed on, donated, entrusted

Antonyms: withheld, retained, kept, reclaimed, taken back