hereditary: Meaning and Definition of

he•red•i•tar•y

Pronunciation: (hu-red'i-ter"ē), [key]
— adj.
  1. passing, or capable of passing, naturally from parent to offspring through the genes:Cf. congenital. Blue eyes are hereditary in our family.
  2. of or pertaining to inheritance or heredity: a hereditary title.
  3. existing by reason of feeling, opinions, or prejudices held by predecessors: a hereditary enemy.
  4. a hereditary proprietor.
    1. descending by inheritance.
    2. transmitted or transmissible in the line of descent by force of law.
    3. holding title, rights, etc., by inheritance:a hereditary proprietor.
    1. (of a collection of sets) signifying that each subset of a set in the collection is itself a set in the collection.
    2. of or pertaining to a mathematical property, as containing a greatest integer, applicable to every subset of a set that has the property.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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