Definition of "heredity" []

• The genetic transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring. (noun)
• The sum of characteristics and associated potentialities transmitted genetically to an individual organism. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Thus it is "_heredity with natural selection which adapt_ the anatomical plan of the ganglia." {236b} It is heredity which impresses nervous changes on the individual. {236c} "In the lifetime of species actions originally intelligent may by frequent repetition _and heredity_," &c. {236d}; but he nowhere tells us what heredity is any more than Messrs. Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Lewes have done."
• "We need not use the term heredity at all, or if we do, must remember that in the present argument it does not refer to any transmission from the parent."
• "While most things humans do have roots in heredity, could voting and political participation in general be another to add to the list?"