legacy hunter

English

Alternative forms

• legacy-hunter

Etymology

Calque of Latin hērēdipeta.

Noun

legacy hunter (plural legacy hunters)

1. One that strives after an inheritance.
   • 1817, Maria Edgeworth, chapter IX, in Ormond:

     “ […] I am a great hunter, but not legacy hunter, that is a kind of hunting I despise—and I wish every hunter of that kind may be thrown out, or thrown off, and may never be in at the death!”

   • 1837, John William Kaye, chapter XIX, in Doveton, volume 2, page 249:

     I am a legacy-hunter, a parasite, a rich man's minion. I bitterly despise myself already. The very servants will sneer at me; the lowest groom in the stable will point at me.

Further reading

• “legacy hunter”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “legacy hunter”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.