Word.ws English Dictionary

inheritance powder

inheritance powder noun: any of several poisons used for murder, but especially arsenic and, to a lesser extent, thallium.

Noun

inheritance powder (countable and uncountable, plural inheritance powders)

  1. (historical) Any of several poisons used for murder, but especially arsenic and, to a lesser extent, thallium.
    • `Arsenic was very popular in the old days [...] Inheritance powder, they called it. Pure, deadly, white, dissolves in any weak acid.'2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 316

Forms of inheritance powder

pluralinheritance powders

Origin of inheritance powder

So called because one person might murder another to gain an inheritance.

Questions about inheritance powder

What does inheritance powder mean?
Inheritance powder means any of several poisons used for murder, but especially arsenic and, to a lesser extent, thallium.
What part of speech is inheritance powder?
Inheritance powder is a noun.
What is the plural of inheritance powder?
The plural of inheritance powder is inheritance powders.

Words near inheritance powder in the dictionary

  1. inheritably
  2. inheritage
  3. inheritages
  4. inheritance
  5. inheritance law
  6. inheritance powder
  7. inheritance powders
  8. inheritance tax
  9. inheritance taxes
  10. inheritances
  11. inherited

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inheritance powder (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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