patrimony
/ˈpatrɪməni
/noun (plural patrimonies) [mass noun]
1Property inherited from one’s father or male ancestor: owners refuse to part with their patrimony in the interests of agricultural development [as modifier]: patrimony laws...
- The modern official formation of the Japanese canon of cultural patrimony dates back to the first cultural protection law of 1871.
- According to the law of Abdera, whoever wasted his patrimony would be deprived of the rites of burial.
- Several crumbling mansions also echo the misfortunes of wastrel sons who blew their patrimony on (as one local tells me), ‘fast women and slow horses’.
1.1Valued things passed down from previous generations; heritage: an organization that saves the world’s cultural patrimony by restoring historic buildings...
- The importance of these collections in preserving the cultural patrimony of African Americans in particular and Americans in general is indisputable.
- Such places of natural beauty were to be passed ‘as a sacred patrimony from generation to generation’.
- And they wouldn't be considered cultural patrimony.
Synonyms
heritage, inheritance, birthright;
property, riches, wealth, possessions;
legacy, bequest, endowment, estate, bequeathal;
Law devise, hereditament
1.2chiefly historical The estate or property belonging by ancient endowment or right to a church or other institution.Norman abbots energetically fought off the encroachments on the wealth and patrimony of the houses on which the abbots' own fates depended....
- The most notable elements of the Andorran patrimony are its thirty Romanesque churches, almost all of them small, built between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries.
Derivatives
patrimonial
/ adjective ...- In a traditional patrimonial system, all ruling relationships are personal relationships and the difference between the private and public spheres is nonexistent.
- Of course, this is an additional patrimonial treasure that will increase the notoriety of Arles.
- They underline the patrimonial structure of society in mobilizing the people.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French patrimoine, from Latin patrimonium, from pater, patr- 'father'.