Definition
Capable of passing by inheritance; transmissible through descent. The term operates in two distinct directions:
1. Applied to a person: Having the legal capacity to take property by inheritance — that is, to stand as a valid heir and receive an estate by descent from a decedent. Historically, this capacity was called "inheritable blood" and could be destroyed by attainder, bastardy, or alien status.
2. Applied to property or a right: Capable of descending to heirs; transmissible from ancestor to heir by operation of law rather than by will or conveyance.
The directional distinction matters: when describing a person, inheritable asks whether someone can receive. When describing property or a title, it asks whether the thing can be passed down at all.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): That can be inherited; capable of taking by inheritance or receiving by descent.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Capable of being inherited; transmissible or descendible, as an inheritable estate or title; also capable of being transmitted from parent to child, as inheritable qualities or infirmities; and capable of taking by inheritance, as an heir.
The gap between common and legal meaning is subtle but consequential. In ordinary English, "inheritable" tends to describe the thing being passed down — an inheritable trait, an inheritable fortune. In classical legal usage, the word was equally and carefully applied to the person inheriting, and that personal application carried significant weight. Whether a particular person possessed inheritable blood was a threshold question before any property analysis began. Modern lay readers will miss this person-directed sense entirely.
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Common Confusion
INHERITABLE vs. DESCENDIBLE: Rapalje & Lawrence draw a precise line: inheritable describes the person (their capacity to take); descendible describes the estate or property (its capacity to pass). The two words are not interchangeable in historical sources, and collapsing them produces errors in reading older title chains and treatises. A property might be descendible while a claimant lacks inheritable blood — the estate can pass, but not to that particular person.
INHERITABLE vs. DEVISABLE: Inheritable property passes by operation of law to heirs on intestacy. Devisable property passes by will. Many interests were descendible and inheritable but not devisable under older common law rules, and the distinction governed planning strategies for generations.
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Why It Matters in Research
The word appears frequently in historical title records, early American property cases, and English common law sources, but its meaning shifts depending on whether it is modifying a person or a thing. Researchers reading old abstracts of title or chain-of-title opinions must track which usage is in play.
The concept of inheritable blood was directly disrupted by attainder — a person attainted of treason or felony had their blood "corrupted," cutting off not only their own capacity to inherit but potentially their descendants' capacity as well. American constitutional law abolished attainder and its blood-corruption consequences, but historical title disputes from the colonial and early federal periods may still turn on these questions.
In the modern context, the person-directed meaning has been substantially replaced by statutory heir-qualification rules and, increasingly, by case law on posthumous reproduction. Whether a posthumously conceived child is an "inheritable" person — capable of taking as an heir — is now a live question in intestacy and Social Security law, handled differently across jurisdictions. The Family Law Encyclopedia entry on posthumous reproduction addresses this directly.
Researchers using Rapalje & Lawrence or Coke's Institutes should note that the personal capacity sense of inheritable is the operative one in those sources; modern statutes and secondary sources have largely absorbed the property-directed sense into "descendible" or simply "heritable."
Tax researchers should be careful not to conflate inheritable (a property law term of art) with the tax treatment of inherited property. Whether something is inheritable as a matter of property law and whether its transfer triggers estate or inheritance tax are separate questions answered by separate legal regimes.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence draw on Coke's Littleton (Co. Litt. 10a, 12a) and make the person/property distinction explicit: "inheritable" to the person, "descendible" to the estate. This is a precise and important editorial note that later dictionaries tend to blur.
Webster's 1913 captures all three senses — property capable of descending, qualities transmissible to children, and persons capable of taking — but does not foreground the technical distinction between personal capacity and property capacity that governs legal usage. The inclusion of "inheritable qualities or infirmities" reflects a biological usage that entered ordinary English but has no legal significance.
The Coke citations ground the term in its classical common law context. Researchers needing the primary source for "inheritable blood" doctrine should go directly to Co. Litt. 10a-12a before relying on dictionary summaries.
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Jurisdictional Note
The personal-capacity rules governing who holds inheritable blood have been replaced in all American jurisdictions by statutory intestacy frameworks, but the vocabulary persists in older deeds, wills, and judicial opinions. Modern variation centers on whether posthumously conceived children qualify as heirs — jurisdictions diverge significantly, and some have addressed it by statute while others leave it to courts.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia: State Estate and Inheritance Taxes — Decoupling and Planning Considerations
Family Law Encyclopedia: Assisted Reproduction — Posthumous Reproduction and Inheritance Rights
Tax Encyclopedia: Exclusions — Gifts and Inheritances
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