From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Hereditary \He*red"i*ta*ry\, adjective [L. hereditarius, fr. hereditas heirship, inheritance, fr. heres heir: cf. F. h['e]r['e]ditaire. See {Heir}.]
1. Descended, or capable of descending, from an ancestor to an heir at law; received or passing by inheritance, or that must pass by inheritance; as, an hereditary estate or crown.
2. Transmitted, or capable of being transmitted, as a constitutional quality or condition from a parent to a child; as, hereditary pride, bravery, disease.
Syn: Ancestral; patrimonial; inheritable.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: tending to occur among members of a family usually by heredity; "an inherited disease"; "familial traits"; "genetically transmitted features" [syn: {familial}, {genetic}, {inherited}, {transmitted}, {transmissible}]
2: inherited or inheritable by established rules (usually legal rules) of descent; "ancestral home"; "ancestral lore"; "hereditary monarchy"; "patrimonial estate"; "transmissible tradition" [syn: {ancestral}, {patrimonial}, {transmissible}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
43 Moby Thesaurus words for "hereditary": ancestral, atavistic, bequeathed, bodily, born, coeval, congenital, connatal, connate, connatural, constitutional, genetic, genic, handed down, heritable, in the blood, inborn, inbred, incarnate, indigenous, inheritable, inherited, innate, instinctive, instinctual, matroclinous, native, native to, natural, natural to, organic, patrimonial, patroclinous, physical, plasmatic, plasmic, primal, protoplasmic, temperamental, traditional, transferable, transmissible, willed
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