Inheritable

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ɪnˈhɛrɪtəbəl/

Definitions

1. Concerning traits or characteristics capable of being transferred from ancestors to descendants
2. Involving genetic features that may be passed along hereditary lines from one generation to the next
3. Able to be transmitted from one generation to another through family lineage

Etymology: Inheritable grows from "inherit," which reaches English through Old French "enheriter" from Latin "inhereditare," meaning to appoint someone as heir, with the "-able" ending added to show that something can be passed on. The adjective appears in Middle English as "enheritable," borrowed from Anglo-Norman, the French variety spoken by the English ruling class after the Norman Conquest. The root idea is legal and concrete. A Roman "heres" was the person who took over a dead man's property and obligations, so the earliest sense of "inherit" was about property and rights passing to a successor. Over time the verb lost its strictly legal edge and came to mean receiving qualities or traits from ancestors, and "inheritable" followed that shift, now applying to anything that can be handed down, from land and titles to genetic characteristics.

Synonyms: legatable, transmissible, bequeathable, descendible, heritage

Antonyms: non-inheritable, untransferable, incommunicable, unbequeathable, disinheritance