Dictionary

legacy hunter en · NOUN

Etymology

Calque of Latin hērēdipeta.

Meanings

1. One that strives after an inheritance.
   • “[…] 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!” 1817, Maria Edgeworth, chapter IX, in Ormond:
   • 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. 1837, John William Kaye, chapter XIX, in Doveton, volume 2, page 249:

Forms