Word.ws English Dictionary

heirling

heirling is the diminutive of heir.

Meaning of heir

Noun

heir (plural heirs)

  1. Someone who inherits, or is designated to inherit, the property of another.
    • My brother is the heir to our childhood house and yet has no interest in it.
  2. One who inherits, or has been designated to inherit, a hereditary title or office.
    • As the heir to the British throne, the Prince of Wales is a very public figure.
    Synonyms:
    inheritor
  3. A successor in a role, representing continuity with the predecessor.
    • And I his heir in misery alone.1725, Homer, “Book I”, in [Elijah Fenton], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC

See all 4 meanings of heir

Forms of heirling

pluralheirlings

Origin of heirling

From heir + -ling.

Questions about heirling

What is heirling the diminutive of?
Heirling is the diminutive of heir.

Words near heirling in the dictionary

  1. heirheads
  2. heirhood
  3. heiring
  4. heirless
  5. heirlessness
  6. heirling
  7. heirlings
  8. heirloom
  9. heirlooms
  10. heirmoi
  11. heirmologia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heirling (page history and authors); heir (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.

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