heigh 
Hei'jh. my hearts ! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts ! 
Shak., Tempest, i. 1. 
heighawt, heighhawt, [Also hinh<ni-<; hi</h- 
hoc, etc. : see hiekwall, hiclcway.'] Same as hick- 
ii-n/l. 
heighet, '' An obsolete form of hie. 
heighfert, An obsolete form of heifer. 
heigh-ho (Who), inter j. [Also heylio, So. hech- 
howc; < heigh + Iio. ] An exclamation express- 
ing a degree of surprise, astonishment, or ex- 
ultation, or more usually, as languidly uttered, 
some weariness, marking conventionally a sigh 
or a yawn: also sometimes as a verb. 
We'll toss oil our ale till we cannot stand, 
And heiyh-ho for the honour of old England. 
Dryden. 
By my troth I am exceeding ill ; hey ho ! 
Shak., Much Ado, iii. 4. 
It was just the sort of house which youthful couples 
newly united by Holy Church heiyh-ho'd for as they 
passed. 31. W. Savage, R. Medlicott, i. 1. 
height, hight 1 (hit), n. [The second form is 
less common, but more correct (there is no rea- 
son for the distinction of vowel between high 
and height) ; also formerly heighth, highth (early 
mod. E. also heigth, hyeth, etc.), according to 
a pronunciation (hith, improp. hitth) still often 
heard; < ME. highte, hyghte, heghte, higte, also, 
with orig. -th, heighthe, heigthe, hegthe, < AS. hed- 
thu, with umlaut hehthu, hiehtho, height, high 
place (= D. hoogte = OHG. hohida = Icel. hcedh 
= Sw. hojd = Dan. hojde = Goth, hauhitha, 
height), < hedh, E. high, etc., + -thw, -th, an ab- 
stract formative as in breadth, width, warmth, 
etc.: see high.] 1. Highness; elevation; alti- 
tude ; stature ; vertical distance or angular ele- 
vation from a base or a level, or any point of 
reckoning: as, the height of a tree, a mountain, 
or a tower. 
I tok the altitude of my sonne, and fond that it was 25 
degrees and 30 of minutes of heyhte. 
Chaucer, Astrolabe, ii. 3. 
Behold the height of the stars, how high they are ! 
Job xxii. 12. 
I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown : . . . 
Therefore I know she is about my height. 
Shak., T. G. of V., iv. 4. 
And e'er the sun was twa hours hight, 
The boy was at Dundee. 
Bonny Baby Livingston (Child's Ballads, IV. 42). 
An amphitheatre's amazing height 
Here fills my eye with terror and delight. 
Addison, Letter from Italy. 
2. Elevation of degree or of condition; emi- 
nence of quality, character, rank, etc. 
By Him that rais'd me to this careful height. 
Shak., Rich. III., L S. 
You can never take the just height of God's Mercies to 
you unless you begin at the bottom. 
Stillint/Jleet, Sermons, II. vii. 
No religious sects ever carried their mutual aversions 
to greater heights than our state parties have done. 
Swift, Sentiments of a Ch. of Eng. Man, ii. 
The Church and the monarchy were the two national 
powers which had been raised to a height above all others 
through the strife with heathendom and the Danes. 
J. R. Green, Conq. of Eng., p. 304. 
3. The highest part; the top; hence, culmina- 
tion; the highest degree ; the highest point to 
be attained or desired : as, the height of a fever ; 
the height of fashion. 
All my former wrongs 
Were but beginnings to my miseries, 
But this the height of all. 
Fletcher, Spanish Curate, iii. 8. 
James was now at the height of power and prosperity. 
Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. 
4. That which has highness ; an elevation; an 
eminence, especially of land ; a hill, mountain, 
or precipice : often in the plural : as, to ascend 
a height; the Heights of Abraham at Quebec. 
From Alpine heights the father first descends ; 
His daughter's husband in the plain attends. 
Dryden, JSneid. 
6t. Latitude ; degree of distance from the equa- 
tor, whether north or south. 
Guinea lieth to the north sea, in the same height as 
Peru to the south. Abp. Abbot, Descrip. of World. 
6f. Haughtiness. 
Stand there, I say ; and put on a sad countenance, 
Mingled with height ; be cover'd and reserv'd. 
Fletcher and Rowley, Maid in the Mill, iii. 2. 
Height of an algebraic number. See number. index 
Of height. See craniometry. On hlghtt. (a) Aloud. 
He gan to loken up with eyen lighte, 
And spak these same wordes al on highte. 
Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 1. 926. 
(b) Upward ; aloft ; on high. 
With flouris fayr on heght to hyng, 
And truth [fruit] also to fylle and fede. 
York Plays, p. 10. 
Ryght so sey I be fire or soun 
Or smoke, or other thynges lyghte, 
Alwey they seke upward on highte. 
Chaucer, House of Fame, 1. 744. 
2773 
height-board (hit'bord), . A stair-builders' 
gage for the risers and treads of a stairway. 
heighten, highten (hl'tn), v. [< height + -enl, 
3, as in lengthen, strengthen, etc.] I. trans. 1. 
To make higher; increase the vertical ele- 
vation of. 2. To make higher in amount or 
degree; increase; augment; intensify: as, to 
heighten an effect. 
Foreign states have endeavoured to heighten our contu- 
sion. Addition. 
3. To make high or higher in feeling or condi- 
tion ; elevate or exalt, as the mind or a person. 
Being so heightened, 
He water'd his new plants with dews of flattery. 
Shak., Cor., v. 5. 
Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold. 
. Jonson, Alchemist, iv. 1. 
Beighten'd in their thoughts beyond 
All doubt of victory. Milton, P. L., vi. 629. 
Grotius added much to him, in whom we have either 
something new, or something heightned, that was said be- 
fore. Selden, Table-Talk, p. 21. 
=Syn. Lift, Exalt, etc. See raise. 
II. intrans. To become higher ; increase ; 
augment. 
Then the Captain's colour heighten'd, 
Joyful came his speech. 
Tennyson, The Captain. 
heightener, hightener (Mt'ner), . One who 
or that which heightens. Imp. Diet. 
heightht (hith), n. An obsolete variant of height. 
Heimia (hi'mi-ii), n. [NL., named after Lud- 
wig Heim, a German botanist.] A section of 
the botanical genus Nescea, natural order 
Lythrariece, named in 1821 by Link and Otto, 
who considered it a distinct genus. As applied to 
the Mexican hanchinol, H. salicifolia, it is still in use by 
apothecaries. See hanchinol and Nescea. 
Heine's function. See function. 
heinous (ha'nus), a. [Formerly also hainous; 
E. dial, accom. hainish; < ME. heinous, heyn- 
gous, hainous, < OF. hainos, F. haineux, odious, 
hateful, < hame (> E. dial, hain), hate, hatred, 
malice, < hair, hate, earlier hadir, of OLG. ori- 
gin, OFries. hatia = AS. hatian = Goth, hatjan, 
hate: see fcafei.] 1. Hateful; odious; repre- 
hensible. [Now rare.] 
Hethely in my halle, wyth heyngous wordes, 
In speche disspyszede me and sparede me lyttille. 
Morte Arthure (E. E. T. S.), 1. 268. 
It is a heinous thing, bloodshedding, and specially vol- 
untary murder, and prepensed murder. 
Latimer, 5th Sermon bef. Edw. VI., 1549. 
How heinous had the fact been, how deserving 
Contempt and scorn ! Milton, 8. A., 1. 493. 
Hence 2. Reprehensibly great; enormous; 
aggravated: sometimes used (in a similar 
sense) of persons. 
For this is an heinous crime ; yea, it is an iniquity to be 
punished by the judges. Job xxxi. 11. 
As for that heinous tiger, Tamora, . . . 
Her life was beastly, and devoid of pity. 
Shak., Tit. And., v. 3. 
=Syn. Wicked, Infamous, etc. (see atrocious) ; flagitious, 
dreadful, horrible. 
heinously (ha'nus-li), adv. [< ME. *heinovsly, 
heneusly ; < heinous + -ty 2 .] In a heinous man- 
ner; hatefully; abominably; enormously. 
Euen like a theffe heneusly 
Hurle je me here. York Plays, p. 253. 
You have received all that you have, and your own be- 
ing, from him, and why should you take it so heinously, 
if he is pleased to resume something back again ? 
Bp. Wilkins, Natural Religion, i. 17. 
I had him wormed lately, which he took heinously. 
H. Walpole, To Mann, Oct. 3, 1743. 
heinousness (ha'nus-nes), n.' The condition 
or quality of being heinous ; odiousness ; enor- 
mity : as, the heinousness of a vice or crime. 
There are many authors who have shown wherein the 
malignity of a lie consists, and set forth, in proper colours, 
the heinousness of the offence. Spectator, No. 507. 
heir (ar), n. [< ME. heire, hey re, also, and orig., 
without the silent h, eir, eyr, ayer, etc., < OF. 
heir, eir, later hoir, oir, F. hoir = Pr. her = It. 
erede, < L. heres (improp. written hares, rarely 
eres) (hered-), an heir, akintoherus, erus, master, 
Mr Gr. x e ' l P> the hand, Skt. -\fhar, take, seize. 
Hence (from L. heres) E. hereditary, etc., herit- 
able, heritage, etc., inherit, etc.] 1. One who 
inherits, or has a right of inheritance in, the 
property of another ; one who receives, or is en- 
titled to receive, possession of property or a 
vested right on the death of its owner, either 
as his natural or as his legal successor. 
West-mynster lawe, ich wot wel worcheth the contrarie ; 
For thauh the fader be a frankelayne and for a felon be 
hanged, 
The heritage that the air sholde haue ys at the kynges 
wille. Piers Plowman (C), xi. 240. 
heir 
The nation looked kindly on the one sound adminis- 
trator left, and the more so perhaps when they saw in 
him the rightful heir to the throne. 
Stubbs, Const. Hist., 347. 
(a) Technically, in law, the person upon whom the 
law casts an estate in real property immediately on the 
death of the ancestor, as distinguished from one who 
takes by will as a legatee or devisee, and from one who 
succeeds by law to personal property as next of kin. The 
same person who is heir when considered with reference 
to realty is often also next of kin when considered with 
reference to personalty ; and where a testator's will dis- 
poses of part only of his realty, the same person who takes 
under the will as devisee may also take an undisposed-of 
part as heir. In this sense the word as used at common 
law does not include a widow on whom the law casts 
an estate in dower, or a husband on whom the law casts 
an estate by the courtesy, for these are considered new 
estates, arising out of marriage and its incidents, and 
carved out of the fee, not as a continuation or devolu- 
tion of the fee itself. If there be dower or courtesy, 
the heir is that person who takes immediate title to 
the fee, subject to such life-estate. In legal phrase heir 
and heir at law are commonly used in England in the 
singular, because the general rule of descent there has 
given the entire estate to the eldest male. The singular 
is also not uncommonly used in the United States to 
designate whoever may be entitled, whether one or more, 
because of English usage, and because appropriate in all 
cases where there is but one standing in the nearest de- 
gree to the deceased. 
General heirs may be in either the ascending or descend- 
ing line : for example, a father or grandfather might be a 
general heir to the last owner, as well as a son or a grand- 
son. "Collateral heirs" are those deriving their descent 
through some stock in the ascending line : for instance, 
a brother as a son of the common father, or an uncle as 
the son of the common grandfather, or a sister, or an aunt, 
oracousin. "Heirsm tail" can only be in the descending 
line. L. A. Goodeve, Modern Law of Real Property, p. 61. 
It is a settled principle of law that the legal rights of 
the heir or distributee to the property of deceased per- 
sons cannot be defeated except by a valid devise of such 
property to other persons. 
Chief Justice Ruger, 105 New York Reports, 193. 
(b) In a broader sense, in those jurisdictions where the 
distinction between realty and personalty is disregarded, 
the person entitled by law to succeed one dying in respect 
of either kind of property, as distinguished from those 
taking by will. In jurisdictions where the distinction is 
preserved, a testamentary gift of personalty, expressed to 
be to one's heirs, is commonly understood to intend his 
next of kin. (e) In another extended sense, one in a series 
of heirs ; any successive inheritor, including not only him 
who takes immediately upon the death of the ancestor, 
but also those who have inherited through several suc- 
cessive descents, (d) In the most general sense, the per- 
son upon whom property of any kind devolves on the 
death of another, either by law or by will. Thus, the chil- 
dren of a person deceased are popularly spoken of as his 
heirs, irrespective of the nature of the property or the 
mode in which it passed. In much this sense heres was 
used in the Roman law. 
2. One who inherits anything; one who re- 
ceives any endowment by inheritance or trans- 
mission. 
I had not now been heir to heaven's just scorn 
If in Earths eye my shape had been forlorn. 
J. Beaumont, Psyche, ii. 143. 
3. A child regarded with reference to anything 
due to his parentage ; an offspring in general. 
If the first heir of my invention prove deformed I shall 
be sorry it had so noble a godfather. 
Shak., Venus and Adonis, Ded. 
And his heirs, a phrase in a grant to a person named, 
usually denoting, under technical common-law rules, that 
an estate of inheritance capable of passing to heirs is con- 
veyed, as distinguished from a life-estate in him only, 
and as distinguished from a life-estate in him with a re- 
mainder to those persons who may on his death prove to 
be his heirs. Behavior as heir. See behavior. Expec- 
tant heir, one having expectations founded on the prob- 
ability or possibility of coming into a future property, 
whether as heir or next of kin or as devisee or legatee, and 
who by reason of present need or desire of ready means is 
prone to be tempted to sell his expectancy. The improvi- 
dent assignments and mortgages which result, called in 
the law catching-bargains, are often set aside or modified 
in the English Court of Chancery. Forced heir. See 
forced, v. (. Heir apparent (used of a person whose 
ancestor is still living), an heir whose right is indefeasi- 
ble, provided he survives the ancestor, as distinguished 
from an heir presumptive, whose expectation may be de- 
feated by the birth of a nearer relative, as a brother of 
a man who has as yet no children. According to the law 
of Scotland, an heir apparent is the person to whom the 
succession has actually opened, and who remains apparent 
heir until his regular entry, in clare coustat. Heir at 
law, an heir in sense 1 (a). Heir by custom, one whose 
right as heir is determined by certain customary modes of 
descent which are attached to the land, such as gavel- 
kind or borough-English. Heir by limitation, a phrase 
sometimes used to designate a devisee or donee who takes 
not by succession as heir of the testator or grantor, but 
because he answers to the description of " heir of " a spe- 
cified person used in the will or deed. Thus, if a testator 
gives property to his wife for life and at her death to the 
heir of A, a child of A who should take would do so not 
as heir by way of inheritance from either, but as heir by 
limitation. The distinction is important in several ways, 
as, for instance, if A died insolvent^ hind which his child 
took as his heir by inheritance would be liable for his 
debts, but land which he took as heir by limitation, under 
a gift from the supposed testator, would not. Heir gen- 
eral, an heir in sense 1 (a), as distinguished from an heir 
special, one to whom the estate passes by virtue of an en- 
tail. See tails. 
