PATRIMONY

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does patrimony mean? 

• PATRIMONY (noun)
  The noun PATRIMONY has 2 senses:

1. a church endowment

2. an inheritance coming by right of birth (especially by primogeniture)

  Familiarity information: PATRIMONY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PATRIMONY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A church endowment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Hypernyms ("patrimony" is a kind of...):

endowment; endowment fund (the capital that provides income for an institution)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An inheritance coming by right of birth (especially by primogeniture)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

birthright; patrimony

Hypernyms ("patrimony" is a kind of...):

heritage; inheritance (that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner)

Derivation:

patrimonial (inherited or inheritable by established rules (usually legal rules) of descent)

 Context examples 

I then spoke at large upon the constitution of an English parliament; partly made up of an illustrious body called the House of Peers; persons of the noblest blood, and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)