What does heiress mean?
Word: Heiress
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Heiress means a girl or woman who will one day receive money, property or a title from her family, often a large fortune.
Synonyms: successor
How do you spell heiress?
Syllables: heir - ess
Tricky part: The silent h stays at the front, and the vowels go e then i, as in heir. Children who spell by sound start it with air.
Watch out for: hieress, airess, hairess
Memory tip: Write heir first, the word for the person who inherits, and then add the female ending.
Heiress in a sentence
Example 1: The heiress used her fortune to build schools in her home town.
Example 2: In the novel, the young heiress was not allowed to leave the palace.
Example 3: The tea estate passed to the planter's daughter, the only heiress.
Fun Fact
The words heir, heiress, inherit and heritage all come from the same Latin root, heres, meaning one who receives what is left behind.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) fortchune
b) inheritence
c) propperty
d) heiress
Show answer
d) heiress. Heiress is the only correct word; fortune, inheritance and property, which often go with it, are all misspelt here.
Word Makeup
Choose the suffix that completes the word:
heir
a) iss
b) ess
c) es
d) ness
Show answer
b) ess. Like lioness and princess, the female form takes ess with two s's.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
rsheesi
a) heiress
b) heroes
c) sheers
d) shires
Show answer
a) heiress. Heroes needs an o, and shires and sheers are a letter short, so the seven letters spell heiress.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Where is heiress used the right way?
a) We bought a shiny new heiress for our kitchen.
b) The heiress of the race crossed the finish line first.
c) My uncle is the heiress to my grandfather's old shop.
d) The heiress will one day run her mother's tea estate.
Show answer
d) The heiress will one day run her mother's tea estate.
2. Rani is the heiress to her grandfather's farm. Who will own the farm one day?
a) Rani herself
b) Rani's neighbour
c) the village bank
d) the farm workers
Show answer
a) Rani herself
