heritage

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   practices that are handed down from the past by tradition

   a heritage of freedom

2. 2
   noun

   An inheritance; property that may be inherited.

   Now unſpeakable happy are all thoſe that have ſuch an heritage: can we thinke they will part with it? No verily, […] they will not part with ſuch an inheritance as Chriſt is, rich, fat, alwayes fruitfull, and never decaying.

3. 3
   noun

   A tradition; a practice or set of values that is passed down from preceding generations through families or through institutional memory.

   In fact it was a multifarious agglomerate of many little countries, gathered by marriage, heritage and luck, in the course of centuries, and now united in the hand of this Duke Wilhelm.

4. 4
   noun

   Having a certain background, such as growing up with a second language.

   a heritage speaker; a heritage language

5. 5
   noun

   hereditary succession to a title or an office or property

6. 6
   noun

   any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors

7. 7
   noun

   that which is inherited

8. 8
   noun

   A birthright; the status acquired by birth, especially of but not exclusive to the firstborn.

Etymology

From Middle English heritage, from Old French eritage, heritage (modern French héritage), ultimately derived (through suffixation) from Latin hērēs. By surface analysis, herit + -age.