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HOW TO PRONOUNCE

hereditary

/hɚˈɛdəˌtɛɹi/

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American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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The second syllable carries the main stress.

Keep the opening r-colored vowel light, then make the following vowel the strongest beat.

5 syllables · Stress on syllable 2

TRY SAYING
She asked whether the condition was hereditary.

APG practice sentence · CC BY-SA 4.0

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

What does hereditary mean?

adjective

  1. Passed on as an inheritance, by last will or intestate.
  2. Of a title, honor or right: legally granted to somebody's descendant after that person's death.
  3. Of a person: holding a legally hereditary title or rank.
More meanings (4)

adjective

  1. Of a disease or trait: passed from a parent to offspring in the genes.
  2. Of a ring: such that all submodules of projective modules over the ring are also projective.
  3. Of a property of graphs: such that if G has the property, so must every induced subgraph of G.

noun

  1. A hereditary ruler; a hereditary peer in the House of Lords.

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/hɚˈɛdəˌtɛɹi/

Pronunciation used in the listening tip.

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary

Other dictionary pronunciations

/həˈɹɛdɪˌtɛɹi/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

We need a field worker to travel about the country and pick up all the hereditary statistics she can about our chicks.
Jean WebsterDear EnemyProject Gutenberg ebook #238
The cytoplasm of the male sexual cell is therefore not necessary to ensure a transference of hereditary characters from parents to offspring.
A. C. (Albert Charles) SewardDarwin and Modern ScienceProject Gutenberg ebook #1909
More book examples (3)
Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue.
Herman MelvilleMoby Dick; Or, The WhaleProject Gutenberg ebook #2701
As it is the fashion nowadays to assign a prominent part to these hereditary influences, I must eliminate them from my experiments.
Jean-Henri FabreThe Mason-BeesTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de MattosProject Gutenberg ebook #2884
Diagnosis from the Eye proves that the remaining twenty-five percent are also more or less affected by hereditary and acquired disease conditions.
Henry LindlahrNature Cure: Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & CureProject Gutenberg ebook #4273