heritage
her·i·tage/ˈhɛɹ.ə.tɪd͡ʒ/noun
heritage is spelled H-E-R-I-T-A-G-E, 3 syllables: her·i·tage. The wrong spelling people search most is hertiage: about 470 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 63 of all searches for the word. Heritage is a noun meaning “An inheritance; property that may be inherited”. The plural of heritage is heritages.
How many letters and syllables are in heritage?
| Letters | 8: H-E-R-I-T-A-G-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: her·i·tage |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,875th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, hertiage, about 470 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell heritage?
Heritage is spelled H-E-R-I-T-A-G-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 63 of the searches for heritage in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is heritage?
Heritage appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce heritage?
- UK /ˈhɛɹ.ɪ.tɪd͡ʒ/
- US /ˈhɛɹ.ə.tɪd͡ʒ/
- US [ˈhɛɹ.ə.ɾɪd͡ʒ]
Heritage has 3 syllables, split her·i·tage in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-heritage.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of heritage
- heritages plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does heritage mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An inheritance; property that may be inherited.
- 2
A tradition; a practice or set of values that is passed down from preceding generations through families or through institutional memory.
- 3
A birthright; the status acquired by birth, especially of but not exclusive to the firstborn.
- 4
Having a certain background, such as growing up with a second language.
a heritage speaker; a heritage language
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Heritage in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | héritage |
| German | Erbschaft, Erbe , (kulturelles) Erbe , Geburtsrecht |
| Portuguese | herança , património |
| Spanish | herencia, heredad , acervo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does heritage come from?
From Middle English heritage, from Old French eritage, heritage (modern French héritage), ultimately derived (through suffixation) from Latin hērēs. By surface analysis, herit + -age.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).