Word.ws English Dictionary

inheritocracy

inheritocracy noun: an economic situation in which individuals' prosperity is mainly dependent on inherited wealth rather than income from work or other sources.

Noun

inheritocracy (countable and uncountable, plural inheritocracies)

  1. An economic situation in which individuals' prosperity is mainly dependent on inherited wealth rather than income from work or other sources.
    • Several million people became shareholders for the first time, by subscribing to privatisation issues.
      Another million or two became homeowners, having bought their council houses at bargain prices. new inheritocracy1999 January 5, Martin Van Der Weyer, “The merits of the new inheritocracy”, in Daily Mail, page 11
    • David Brooks ("The Structure of Gratitude," column, July 28) dubiously characterizes American society as a "capitalist meritocracy." I suggest that we are more aptly described as a "capitalist inheritocracy."2015 August 3, Daniel Rigney, “The Politics of Gratitude”, in The New York Times (letter to the editor), page A.18

Examples of inheritocracy in a sentence

  • In the 2020s, rather than a meritocracy – where hard work pays off – we have evolved into an inheritocracy, based on family wealth.2024 November 17, Eliza Filby, “Bank of Mum and Dad: why we all now live in an ‘inheritocracy’”, in The Observer, →ISSN:
  • The rise of the inheritocracy reflects three factors: increasing wealth, changing demography and slower economic growth.2025 March 1, “The bequest boom”, in The Economist, page 63:

Forms of inheritocracy

pluralinheritocracies

Origin of inheritocracy

From inherit + -o- + -cracy.

Questions about inheritocracy

What does inheritocracy mean?
Inheritocracy means an economic situation in which individuals' prosperity is mainly dependent on inherited wealth rather than income from work or other sources.
How do you use inheritocracy in a sentence?
In the 2020s, rather than a meritocracy – where hard work pays off – we have evolved into an inheritocracy, based on family wealth.
What part of speech is inheritocracy?
Inheritocracy is a noun.
What is the plural of inheritocracy?
The plural of inheritocracy is inheritocracies.

Words near inheritocracy in the dictionary

  1. inheritence
  2. inheriter
  3. inheriters
  4. inheriting
  5. inheritocracies
  6. inheritocracy
  7. inheritocrat
  8. inheritocratic
  9. inheritocrats
  10. inheritor
  11. inheritors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inheritocracy (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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