Stirpes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A lineage or family line descended from a common ancestor
2. An ancestral branch or the descendants of an individual, often used in legal contexts
3. A term denoting the inheritance line, referring to the offspring of a particular progenitor

Etymology: "Stirpes" is the plural of "stirps," a Latin word meaning "rootstock" or "stock," the thick base from which a plant's stems grow. Latin speakers extended that botanical sense to ancestry, so a family's line of descent came to be pictured as a plant rooted in a single origin. The plural "stirpēs" carried the same meaning and sometimes stood alongside the singular as a near-equivalent, which is why English inherited both forms. In English, the word survives almost entirely in legal and estate language, most often in the phrase "per stirpes." Here the term describes a method of dividing an inheritance: each branch of the family, starting from the children of the deceased, receives an equal share, and any share belonging to a child who has died passes down to that child's own descendants. The idea is that the family tree is divided by root rather than by head count, so a grandchild whose parent has died takes that parent's portion together with any siblings.