| inheritance | 1. The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities. 2. That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a possession which passes by descent. "When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter." (Shak) 3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, especially. One received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction. "To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." (1 Pet. I. 4) 4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. "The inheritance of their loves." "To you th' inheritance belongs by right Of brother's praise; to you eke longs his love." (Spenser) 5. <biology> Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation. 6. A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of law. The word inheritance (used simply) is mostly confined to the title to land and tenements by a descent. "Men are not proprietors of what they have, merely for themselves; their children have a title to part of it which comes to be wholly theirs when death has put an end to their parents' use of it; and this we call inheritance." (Locke) Origin: Cf. OF. Enheritance. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| alternative inheritance | Galton's term for an assumed form in which all the characters are derived from one parent. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| blending inheritance | Galton's term for inheritance in which no component is conspicuous or obtrusive. (05 Mar 2000) |
| galtonian inheritance | Inheritance in which a measurable phenotype is generated by many loci, the contributions of which are statistically independent, additive, and of about equal value. (The latter are in accordance with the classical central limit therein and justify the use of the multivariate normal distribution in galtonian genetics). Synonym: polygenic inheritance. (05 Mar 2000) |
| recessive inheritance | dominance of traits |
| maternal inheritance | Inheritance through the maternal cell line, for example through the oocyte and eggs. Mitochondrial genes are maternally inherited and various other nonMendelian forms of inheritance may also appear as maternal inheritance. (18 Nov 1997) |
| Mendelian inheritance | <genetics> Inheritance of characters according to the classical laws formulated by Gregor Mendel, which give the classic ratios of segregation in the F2 generation. In sexually reproducing organisms, any process of heredity explicable in terms of chromosomal segregation, independent assortment and homologous exchange. (18 Nov 1997) |
| Mendelian Inheritance in Man | A standard, comprehensive, perpetually updated reference source for traits in humans that have been shown to be mendelian or that are thought on reasonable grounds to be so. Each entry has a six-digit catalog number. Those securely established (by molecular biology or by extensive clinical studies) are marked with an asterisk. (05 Mar 2000) |
| mitochondrial inheritance | The inheritance of a trait encoded in the mitochondrial genome. Because of the oddities of mitochondria, mitochondrial inheritance does not obey the classic rules of genetics. Persons with a mitochondrial disease may be male or female but they are always related in the maternal line and no male with the disease can transmit it to his children. (12 Dec 1998) |
| codominant inheritance | Inheritance in which two alleles are individually expressed in the presence of each other; there may be other alleles available at the locus that may or may not exhibit codominance. (05 Mar 2000) |
| collateral inheritance | The appearance of characters in collateral members of a family group, as when an uncle and a niece show the same character inherited from a common ancestor; in recessive characters it may appear irregularly, in contrast to dominant characters transmitted directly from one generation to the next. (05 Mar 2000) |
| mosaic inheritance | Inheritance in which the paternal influence is dominant in one group of cells and the maternal in another. Compare: lyonization. (05 Mar 2000) |
| multifactorial inheritance | Type of hereditary pattern seen with a combination of genetic factors, sometimes with environmental influence. Skin colour, for example, is multifactorially determined. (12 Dec 1998) |
| polygenic inheritance | Inheritance in which a measurable phenotype is generated by many loci, the contributions of which are statistically independent, additive, and of about equal value. (The latter are in accordance with the classical central limit therein and justify the use of the multivariate normal distribution in galtonian genetics). Synonym: polygenic inheritance. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cytoplasmic inheritance | <genetics> Inheritance of parental characters through a nonchromosomal means, thus mitochondrial DNA is cytoplasmically inherited since the information is not segregated at mitosis. In a broader sense the organisation of a cell may be inherited through the continuity of structures from one generation to the next. It has often been speculated that the information for some structures may not be encoded in the genomic DNA, particularly in protozoa that have complex patterns of surface organelles. See: maternal inheritance. (18 Nov 1997) |
| X-linked inheritance | The pattern of inheritance that may result from a mutant gene on an X chromosome. (05 Mar 2000) |