heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ə-tə-bəl
ˈhe-rə-
1
: capable of being inherited or of passing by inheritance
2
Synonyms
Examples of heritable in a Sentence
heritable characteristics like skin and eye and hair color
Recent Examples on the Web
Some heritable eye diseases may be caused by gut bacteria.
—Emily Harnett, Harper's Magazine, 26 Apr. 2024
She’s found that most behaviors are intermediately heritable, meaning that that, yes, genes matter, but genetics is often less than half the picture.
—Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2024
There's also some evidence that spatial cognition skills in pheasants are weakly heritable, suggesting that predation could apply an evolutionary selection to this trait.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Jan. 2023
Alta Charo, a bioethicist and legal scholar who was also in attendance, noted that although the risks are higher in a fetus, heritable germline modification is still probably a remote possibility, because of all the things that have to happen for those changes to be passed down.
—Megan Molteni, STAT, 21 Feb. 2024
Doberman pinschers and Labrador retrievers often have a heritable form of narcolepsy.
—Discover Magazine, 13 Jan. 2024
Then at age 35, I was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which is a highly heritable difference in brain wiring.
—Irina Gonzalez, Parents, 24 Oct. 2023
Bray and her colleagues found that about half of the variation in attention to human communication among the animals is heritable.
—Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 22 Aug. 2023
Even in some places that have banned heritable genome editing, the consensus in the scientific community may be unstable.
—Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'heritable.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Dictionary Entries Near heritable
Cite this Entry
“Heritable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heritable. Accessed 14 Jun. 2024.
Kids Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ət-ə-bəl
: capable of being inherited : hereditary
heritable differences in structure
Medical Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ət-ə-bəl
: hereditary
one of several heritable childhood cancers—W. K. Cavenee et al.
Legal Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ə-tə-bəl
More from Merriam-Webster on heritable
Britannica English: Translation of heritable for Arabic Speakers
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