Disherited

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Deprived of one's inheritance, having been cut off from property or rights that would otherwise have passed to them
2. Having lost the right to inherit land, wealth, or title, often by the decision of a parent or other ancestor
3. Stripped of a legacy or hereditary claim, left without the property that family custom or law would have granted

Etymology: Disherited is the past tense and past participle of "disherit," a verb that means to deprive someone of an inheritance. The verb came into Middle English as "disheriten" and "desheriten," borrowed from Old French "desheriter." That French word was built from a Vulgar Latin form, "dishērētō," which combined the Latin prefix "dis-" (apart, away) with "hērēditō," from the Latin "hērēs," meaning heir. Its literal sense is to remove someone from their heirship. The Latin prefix "dis-" usually signals reversal or removal, so the word works like a negated version of "inherit," which shares the same heir root. Readers who know "inherit" can see the connection directly: to disherit is to take away what inheriting would have given.