Word.ws English Dictionary

corruption of blood

corruption of blood noun: the doctrine in English common law that someone attainted of felony or treason has corrupt blood and so cannot inherit property and has no legal heirs.

Noun

corruption of blood (uncountable)

  1. (historical) The doctrine in English common law that someone attainted of felony or treason has corrupt blood and so cannot inherit property and has no legal heirs.
    • The Congreſs shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or
      Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.1787 September 17, Constitutional Convention, Constitution of the United States, Philadelphia, →OCLC, page 3

Questions about corruption of blood

What does corruption of blood mean?
Corruption of blood means the doctrine in English common law that someone attainted of felony or treason has corrupt blood and so cannot inherit property and has no legal heirs.
What part of speech is corruption of blood?
Corruption of blood is a noun.

Words near corruption of blood in the dictionary

  1. corruptician
  2. corrupticians
  3. corrupting
  4. corruptingly
  5. corruption
  6. corruption of blood
  7. corruptioneer
  8. corruptioneers
  9. corruptionist
  10. corruptionists
  11. corruptionless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: corruption of blood (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “corruption of blood.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/corruption_of_blood. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.