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Inherit vs Descendant - What's the difference?

inherit | descendant |

In biology|lang=en terms the difference between inherit and descendant

is that inherit is (biology) to receive a characteristic from one's ancestors by genetic transmission while descendant is (biology) a later evolutionary type.

As a verb inherit

is to take possession of as a right (especially in biblical translations) .

As an adjective descendant is

descending from a biological ancestor.

As a noun descendant is

(literally) one who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.

inherit

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To take possession of as a right (especially in Biblical translations) .
  • To receive (property or a title etc), by legal succession or bequest after the previous owner's death.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=5 citation , passage=‘It's rather like a beautiful Inverness cloak one has inherited . Much too good to hide away, so one wears it instead of an overcoat and pretends it's an amusing new fashion.’}}
  • (biology) To receive a characteristic from one's ancestors by genetic transmission.
  • To derive from people or conditions previously in force.
  • To come into an inheritance.
  • (computing, programming, transitive) To derive (existing functionality) from a superclass.
  • (computing, programming, transitive) To derive a new class from (a superclass).
  • * 2006 , Daniel Solis, Illustrated C# 2005
  • For example, the following two code segments, from different assemblies, show how easy it is to inherit a class from another assembly.
  • (obsolete) To put in possession of.
  • (Shakespeare)

    Usage notes

    * Do not confuse with inherent.

    Derived terms

    * inheritable * inheritance * inherited * inheritor

    descendant

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • descending from a biological ancestor.
  • proceeding from a figurative ancestor or source.
  • Usage notes

    The adjective may be spelled either with ant'' or ''ent'' as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ''ant .

    Alternative forms

    * descendent

    Antonyms

    * ascendant, ascendent, ascending

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (literally) One who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.
  • ''The patriarch survived many descendants : five children, a dozen grandchildren, even a great grandchild.
  • (figuratively) A thing that derives directly from a given precursor or source.
  • ''This famous medieval manuscript has many descendants .
  • (biology) A later evolutionary type.
  • ''Dogs evolved as descendants of early wolves.
  • (linguistics) A language that is descended from another.
  • English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.
  • (linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
  • * 1993 , Jens Elmegård Rasmussen, “The Slavic i''-verbs with an excursus on the Indo-European ''?''-verbs”, in Bela Brogyanyi and Reiner Lipp (editors), ''Comparative-Historical Linguistics , John Benjamins Publishing, ISBN 978-90-272-3598-5, page 479:
  • The direct descendant of this form is the Slavic aorist: Sb.-Cr. n?s?'', ''d?nos? .

    Usage notes

    The adjective may be spelled either with ant'' or ''ent'' as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ''ant .

    Synonyms

    * * *

    Antonyms

    * ascendant * ancestor * forebear

    Derived terms

    * direct descendant * indirect descendant

    See also

    * offspring * offshoot * progeny ----