heritage

heritage, inheritance, patrimony, birthright denote something which one receives or is entitled to receive by succession (as from a parent or predecessor).

Heritage is the most widely applicable of these words, for it may apply to anything (as a tradition, a right, a trade, or the effect of a cause) that is passed on not only to one's heir or heirs but to the generation or generations that succeed

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[Livy] made the average Roman realize the grandeur of the past and the magnitude of his heritage— Buchan

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our neglect of the magnificent spiritual heritage which we possess in our own history and literature— Inge

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but the war had left its heritage of poverty ... of disease, of misery, of discontent— Rose Macaulay

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a . . . party whose heritage is vision and boldness— Straight

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Inheritance applies to what passes from parent to children, whether it be money, property, or traits of character

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my father's blessing, and this little coin is my inheritance— Beaumont & Fletcher

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but the term may be used in place of heritage when such descent is implied

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a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children— Prov 13:22

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Inheritance, but not heritage, may also apply to the fact of inheriting or to the means by which something passes into one's possession

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come into possession of a property by inheritance

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the power of regulating the devolution of property by inheritance or will upon the death of the owner— Justice Holmes

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Patrimony applies basically to the money or property inherited from one's father, but is also used in the more general sense of ancestral inheritance

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to reave the orphan of his patrimony— Shak.

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content ... to leave his patrimony not worse but something better than he found it— Quiller-Couch

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a most important part of the intellectual patrimony of Italy— R. A. Hall

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Birthright is now more often used in its extended sense (see RIGHT)than in its original sense of the property, goods, privileges, or rank which belong to one by reason of one's birth. But in this sense birthright is often more specific than inheritance, because it usually applies only to what belongs to the firstborn son by the law of primogeniture

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and Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? . . . and he sold his birthright unto Jacob— Gen 25:31-33

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a race which . . . has taught its children to struggle on though despair be their birthright— Gerald Beaumont

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