heir apparent
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.75 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[…] for Mary, though perfectly resolved against ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, was long in finding among the dashing representatives, or idle heir apparents, who were at the command of her beauty, and her 20,000l. any one who could satisfy the better taste she had acquired at Mansfield, whose character and manners could authorise a hope of the domestic happiness she had there learnt to estimate, or put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head."
- "LeBron James, heir apparent to MJ’s throne, seems on paper like a dream trade—he stole plenty of laughs in Trainwreck a few summers ago."
Etymology
From Middle English heier apparaunt, a calque translation of Middle French héritier apparent, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Inflected Forms
heirs apparent (plural)
heir apparents (plural)