Where does “heredity” come from?
Heredity comes from Middle French heredité, from Latin hereditas, ultimately from Latin heres meaning heir, with the suffix -tus forming agent nouns from Proto-Indo-European -tós.
heredity (English): Hereditary transmission of the physical and...
Definitions
- Hereditary transmission of the physical and...
Ancestry of “heredity”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle French | heredité | the right to inherit |
| 2 | Old French | eredité | — |
| 3 | Latin | hērēditas | inheritance |
| 4 | Latin | -tās | ty, -dom, -hood, -ness, -ship |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ts | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -tós | Creates verbal adjectives from verb stems |