Disheriten

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To cut someone off from the property or title they would otherwise have received by right of birth or family descent
2. To strip a person of their rightful inheritance, leaving them without the estate or title they expected to receive
3. To exclude an heir from a family fortune or hereditary position, typically by a formal act of the will or family decision

Etymology: The word goes back to Latin "exheredare," built from "ex-," meaning "out of," and "heres," meaning heir. To disinherit someone was literally to remove them from the position of heir. Latin "exheredare" passed into Old French as "desheriter," and English borrowed that form in the Middle Ages. Along the way the prefix changed. French speakers replaced the Latin "ex-" with "des-," which carried a similar sense of removal or reversal, so the English form looks like a negation of "inherit." Yet "inherit" comes from the same heir root, so the two words are close relatives.

Synonyms: disinherit

Antonyms: inherit