Inheritance \In*her"it*ance\, n. [Cf. OF. enheritance.]

1. The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.

2. That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a possession which passes by descent.

When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. --Shak.

3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. --1 Pet. i. 4.

4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. ``The inheritance of their loves.'' --Shak.

To you th' inheritance belongs by right Of brother's praise; to you eke ?longs his love. --Spenser.

5. (Biol.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.

6. (Law) A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of law. --Blackstone.

Note: The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined to the title to land and tenements by a descent. --Mozley & W.

Men are not proprietors of what they have, merely for themselves; their children have a title to part of it which comes to be wholly theirs when death has put an end to their parents' use of it; and this we call inheritance. --Locke.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)