different between heir vs escheat

English

Alternative forms

• heire (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English heir, from Anglo-Norman eir, heir, from Latin h?r?s.

Pronunciation

• (US) enPR: âr, IPA^(key): /???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /e?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophones: air, Ayr, ere, eyre, are (unit of measurement); err (one pronunciation); e'er (US)

Noun

heir (plural heirs, feminine heiress)

1. Someone who inherits, or is designated to inherit, the property of another.
2. One who inherits, or has been designated to inherit, a hereditary title or office.

3. A successor in a role, representing continuity with the predecessor.
   • "I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came […] and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. […]"

Synonyms

• (one who inherits property): beneficiary (law), inheritor
• (one who inherits title): inheritor
• (successor in a role): See also Thesaurus:successor

Related terms

Translations

Verb

heir (third-person singular simple present heirs, present participle heiring, simple past and past participle heired)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To inherit.
   • 1950, quoted in Our Garst family in America (page 27)

     […] Leonard Houtz & John Myer to be executors to this my last will & testament & lastly my children shall heir equally, one as much as the other.

See also

• legatee
• devisee

Anagrams

• Hire, ReHi, hire, rehi

Dutch

Pronunciation

Noun

heir n (plural heiren, diminutive heirtje n)

1. (archaic) Alternative spelling of heer (“army”)

Derived terms

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Anglo-Norman heir, aire (Old French eir), from Latin h?res (“heir”).

Noun

heir (plural heires)

1. heir

Alternative forms

• heire, heier, eir, eire, eier, ei?er, hair, haire, air, aire, are, her, here, hier, heyr, heyre, heyer, eyr, eyre, eyer, eyur, hayr, hayre, ayr, ayre, ayer, ayere, ayar, hyer
• nayr, nayre, nayer, nere (by rebracketing of an heir)

Descendants

• English: heir
• Scots: heir
• ? Welsh: aer

References

• “heir, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Noun

heir

1. Alternative form of her (“hair”)

Etymology 3

Noun

heir

1. Alternative form of here (“army”)

Etymology 4

Pronoun

heir

1. Alternative form of hire (“her”)

Etymology 5

Noun

heir (plural heires or heiren)

1. Alternative form of here (“haircloth”)

Etymology 6

Adverb

heir

1. Alternative form of her (“here”)

Etymology 7

Determiner

heir

1. Alternative form of here (“their”)

Westrobothnian

Verb

hèir

1. Alternative spelling of hiir.

English

Etymology

From Middle English eschete, from Anglo-Norman escheat, Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), from the past participle of escheoir (“to fall”), from Vulgar Latin *excad?, from Latin ex + cad? (“I fall”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?t??i?t/

Noun

escheat (countable and uncountable, plural escheats)

1. (law) The return of property of a deceased person to the state (originally to a feudal lord) where there are no legal heirs or claimants.
2. (law) The property so reverted.
3. (obsolete) Plunder, booty.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.viii:

     Approching, with bold words and bitter threat, / Bad that same boaster, as he mote, on high / To leaue to him that Lady for excheat, / Or bide him battell without further treat.

4. That which falls to one; a reversion or return.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:escheat.

Translations

Verb

escheat (third-person singular simple present escheats, present participle escheating, simple past and past participle escheated)

1. (transitive) To put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.
   • 2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin 2017, p. 329:

     Failure to perform duties opened the culprit to charges of ‘felony’ (felonia), providing grounds for the king to escheat the fief.

2. (intransitive) To revert to a state or lord because its previous owner died without an heir.

Derived terms

• escheator
• escheatment

Anagrams

• ceaseth, cheetas, teaches

Translations