The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Inheritance \In*her"it*ance\, n. [Cf. OF. enheritance.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an
      estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

            When the man dies, let the inheritance
            Descend unto the daughter.            --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one
      received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.
      [1913 Webster]

            To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
            that fadeth not away.                 --1 Pet. i. 4.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. "The inheritance of
      their loves." --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

            To you th' inheritance belongs by right
            Of brother's praise; to you eke 'longs his love.
                                                  --Spenser.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. (Biol.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant
      generation.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined
         to the title to land and tenements by a descent.
         --Mozley & W.
         [1913 Webster]

               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.
         [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

inheritance
    n 1: hereditary succession to a title or an office or property
         [syn: inheritance, heritage]
    2: that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that
       passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner [syn:
       inheritance, heritage]
    3: (genetics) attributes acquired via biological heredity from
       the parents [syn: inheritance, hereditary pattern]
    4: any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from
       ancestors; "my only inheritance was my mother's blessing";
       "the world's heritage of knowledge" [syn: inheritance,
       heritage]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

70 Moby Thesaurus words for "inheritance":
   Altmann theory, DNA, De Vries theory, Galtonian theory,
   Mendelianism, Mendelism, RNA, Verworn theory, Weismann theory,
   Weismannism, Wiesner theory, allele, allelomorph, attested copy,
   bequeathal, bequest, birth, birthright, borough-English, character,
   chromatid, chromatin, chromosome, codicil, coheirship, coparcenary,
   determinant, determiner, devise, diathesis, endowment, entail,
   eugenics, factor, gavelkind, gene, genesiology, genetic code,
   genetics, heirloom, heirship, hereditability, hereditament,
   heredity, heritability, heritable, heritage, heritance,
   inborn capacity, incorporeal hereditament, inheritability,
   law of succession, legacy, line of succession, matrocliny,
   mode of succession, patrimony, patrocliny, pharmacogenetics,
   postremogeniture, primogeniture, probate, property,
   recessive character, replication, reversion, succession, testament,
   ultimogeniture, will



The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

inheritance

    In object-oriented
   programming, the ability to derive new classes from
   existing classes.  A derived class (or "subclass") inherits
   the instance variables and methods of the "base class"
   (or "superclass"), and may add new instance variables and
   methods.  New methods may be defined with the same names as
   those in the base class, in which case they override the
   original one.

   For example, bytes might belong to the class of integers for
   which an add method might be defined.  The byte class would
   inherit the add method from the integer class.

   See also Liskov substitution principle, multiple
   inheritance.

   (2000-10-10)


Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

INHERITANCE, estates. A perpetuity in lands to a man and his heirs; or it is
the right to succeed to the estate of a person who died intestate. Dig. 50,
16, 24. The term is applied to lands.
     2. The property which is inherited is called an inheritance.
     3. The term inheritance includes not only lands and tenements which
have been acquired by descent, but also every fee simple or fee tail, which
a person has acquired by purchase, may be said to be an inheritance, because
the purchaser's heirs may inherit it. Litt. s. 9.
     4. Estates of inheritance are divided into inheritance absolute, or fee
simple; and inheritance limited, one species of which is called fee tail.
They are also divided into corporeal, as houses and lands and incorporeal,
commonly called incorporeal hereditaments. (q. v.) 1 Cruise, Dig. 68; Sw.
163; Poth. des Retraits, n. 2 8.
     5. Among the civilians, by inheritance is understood the succession to
all the rights of the deceased. It is of two kinds, 1 . That which arises by
testament, when the testator gives his succession to a particular person;
and, 2. That which arises by operation of law, which is called succession ab
intestat. Hein. Lec. El. Sec. 484, 485.