heritage

n.

1. Property that is or can be inherited; an inheritance.
2. Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.
3. The status acquired by a person through birth; a birthright: a heritage of affluence and social position.

[Middle English, from Old French, from eritier, heir, from Medieval Latin hērēditārius, from Latin, inherited. See hereditary.]

SYNONYMS   heritage, inheritance, legacy, tradition. These nouns denote something immaterial, such as a custom, that is passed from one generation to another: a heritage of moral uprightness; a rich inheritance of storytelling; a legacy of philosophical thought; the tradition of noblesse oblige.

noun

1. Something immaterial, as a style or philosophy, that is passed from one generation to another: inheritance, legacy, tradition. See affect/ineffectiveness.
2. Any special privilege accorded a firstborn: birthright, inheritance, legacy, patrimony. See owned/unowned.

Inherited circumstances or benefits. This may be an element of the natural landscape; a heritage coast is a stretch of unaltered coastline which is outstandingly attractive and is protected from development (for map, see area of outstanding natural beauty).

Increasingly, the term is also applied to those elements of the human landscape which represent the past. In recent years there has been a marked increase in the number of ‘themed’ museums in the UK, such as the Jorvik Viking Centre, York. These, together with symbolic landscapes, are expressions of a flourishing heritage industry ‘in which the past is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold as part of the contemporary tourist industry, with the conscious manipulation of history designed to create something which people will consider…spending money on’ (Hubbard and Lilley, Geography 85). The resulting heritage tourism has become one of the most profitable parts of the tourist industry (Waitt and McGurk, Australian Geographer 88).

K. Walsh (1992) has argued that ‘heritage, in many of its forms, is responsible for the destruction of a sense of place’, but Hubbard and Lilley (Geography 85) see the heritage industry ‘as involving conflicts between the different senses of place, with the distinctive character of a town…having resulted from different groups seeking to impose their values on the townscape’.

[Th]

A widely used term that has come to stand in a very general way for everything that is inherited, including structures, objects, images, ideas, sentiments, and practices. Not all of this need be very old, although some of it is. Distinctions are sometimes made between the cultural heritage and the natural heritage. All heritage, however, is constructed in the sense that people or communities have selectively assembled, defined, and validated those things that they wish to consider components of the heritage. Scale is often important here and the appropriation of a heritage is often linked to the creation of global, national, or local identity. Once defined, in whatever way, the material that is taken as being the heritage is often commodified and exploited for educational, economic, or political gain, or simply as diverting entertainment.

IN BRIEF: Something handed down from the past.

The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future. — Unknown

Tutor's tip: After 20 years, the recluse emerged from his "hermitage" (a monastery where a hermit lives) to claim a sizeable "heritage" (what you inherit or possess by reason of birth).

Quotes:

"It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have... insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled." - John Ruskin

"I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigor of the earlier world?" - William Morris

"Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?" - Rupert Brooke

Common misspelling(s) of heritage

• inheritage

Dansk (Danish)
n. - arv

Nederlands (Dutch)
erfgoed, erfdeel, overlevering, de bijbelse Israëlieten, de Kerk

Français (French)
n. - héritage

Deutsch (German)
n. - Erbe

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (νομ., μτφ.) κληρονομιά

Italiano (Italian)
patrimonio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - herança (f)

Русский (Russian)
наследство, доля наследства, древний народ Израиля

Español (Spanish)
n. - herencia, patrimonio

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - arv, kulturarv, fädernearv

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
遗产, 传统, 继承权

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 遺產, 傳統, 繼承權

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 상속 재산, 유산, 신의 선민

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 世襲財産, 先祖伝来のもの, 遺産, 天性, 神の選民, 遺伝

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ارث, ميراث, تركه, تراث‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮נחלה, ירושה, מורשת‬

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heritage	American Heritage Magazine
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