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heir presumptive

noun

Etymology

A calque of French héritier présomptif, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun.

  1. derived from héritier présomptif

Definitions

  1. Someone who will become an heir (usually to a monarchy) only if no-one with a…

    Someone who will become an heir (usually to a monarchy) only if no-one with a higher-ranking claim is born.

    • I am quite aware that your premature decease would leave me heir-presumptive to the title- ”Heir-presumptive? . . . Oh, I see. My mother might peg out and my father marry again. Calculating brute.”

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for heir presumptive. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA