Heir

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɛɚ/

Definitions

1. A person who is legally recognized as the successor to an estate or title after someone else's demise
2. An individual appointed to take over property or claims following the passing of a relative
3. One who is designated to receive property or a title upon the death of its current holder

Etymology: The English word arrived with a silent h. Middle English borrowed it from Anglo-Norman "eir", and the spelling with the h was added later, on the model of the Latin source, "hērēs", which meant a person who takes over another's estate. The Latin word is the same one behind "haeres", a doublet, meaning the two forms entered English by separate routes and ended up as near-identical relatives. The h was restored in spelling even though it had long been silent, which explains why "heir" is pronounced like "air" while the Latin it descends from was pronounced with a full h. Because the root is so old, the word carries the basic legal idea of inheritance: someone who steps into another person's property when that person dies. The meaning has stayed close to that legal core from the earliest English uses to today, with no dramatic shift. The sense of succession is the whole story, and its Latin source preserved the same idea across the centuries.

Synonyms: beneficiary, legatee, descendant, successor, recipient

Antonyms: predecessor, ancestor, forerunner