legitimate heir
True bloodline claimant
A legitimate heir is someone with a legal right to inherit from another person, typically through birth, marriage, or formal designation.
The phrase emphasizes valid claim against potential challengers: The DNA test proved she was the legitimate heir to the estate.
It distinguishes rightful successors from pretenders, illegitimate children, or those disinherited.
Figuratively, someone may be the legitimate heir to a tradition or legacy: She's the legitimate heir to the folk music movement.
- rightfulLegally or morally valid
- rightful ownerOne with legitimate claim
- throneCeremonial chair for sovereigns
- birthrightEntitlement from origin
- blood rightEntitlement by descent
succession · line of succession · bloodline · crown · crown prince · next in line · dynasty · firstborn · primogeniture · lineage · descendant · royal · sovereign · disputed · ancestral · entitlement · prince · scion
- kinshipmother, father, sister, brother, children
- social ranksking, queen, emperor, empress, noble
- heirsheirs, coheirs, beneficiary, beneficiaries, successor
- legal statusesmarried, single, divorced, citizen, widowed
- Royal Heirscrown prince, crown princess, next in line, successor, second in line
- royal successionthrone, succession, line of succession, order of succession, succession line
legitimate heirusurper
Illegal power seizer
illegitimate heir · pretender · impostor · disputed heir · claimant
legitimate heirusurper
Illegal power seizer
conqueror · coup leader · interloper · supplanter · tyrant
legitimate, heir, legitimacy, legitimize, legitimation, legitimately, illegitimate, illegitimacy, heiress