heritage
- 1A practice or set of values handed down from earlier generations, through families or through an institution's collective memory.
Each generation passes down its heritage through stories, songs, and shared customs.
The institution's heritage shapes how new employees understand their work.
Similartradition, legacy, culture
Note
Usually narrowed by an adjective naming what is handed down: Norris E. Class writes of a "social heritage" in 1947, and J. N. Adams of a "linguistic heritage" in 2007. Carlyle's lands "gathered by marriage, heritage and luck" (1858) sit on the border with the property sense. There, heritage is closer to inheritance by descent than to a set of shared values.
- 2Property or possessions that may be passed on to someone as an inheritance.
The estate formed the bulk of the heritage left to the eldest son.
Disputes over the family heritage divided the relatives for years.
Similarinheritance, legacy, patrimony, bequest
Note
The oldest and most concrete sense, reached through Old French eritage from Latin hērēs with the suffix -age added. In John Robotham's Exposition (1652), heritage and inheritance trade places within a single sentence, and he writes "an heritage", the older spelling habit before h. When heritage turns up in older prose, it is worth checking whether land and goods are meant or something handed down in a looser sense.
- 3The status or rights a person gains simply by being born, especially as the firstborn child.
The crown was his heritage, passing to him the moment his father died.
By heritage, the firstborn took control of the family lands.
Similarbirthright, inheritance
- 4A background tied to one's family origins, such as growing up speaking a second language at home.
As a heritage speaker, she understood Tagalog at home but studied it formally later.
His heritage included two languages spoken across three generations.
Similarbackground, ancestry, roots, origins, descent
Note
A noun that works almost entirely in front of another noun: a heritage speaker, a heritage language, heritage Spanish students. It sorts learners by the language they bring from home rather than the one they meet in class. It takes a prefix easily, as in non-heritage students, which marks out everyone else on the course.
Practice
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Origin
This comes from Middle English "heritage," from Old French "eritage" or "heritage" (modern French "héritage"), ultimately derived from Latin "hērēs." It can be broken down as "herit" plus "-age."