1. Property or other legal entitlements inherited from (or through) one's father, especially if it has been handed down through generations in the same family. Concrete movables are heirlooms.

2. In civil law systems the sum total of all personal and real entitlements, including movable and immovable property, belonging to a real person or a moral person. Similar to the common law concept of one's estate, though applied differently. All persons have a patrimony. Patrimonies may also exist independent of persons such as the patrimony of affectation, similar but substantially different from the common law trust or the patrimony of a foundation when it is a social trust . See also family patrimony.

3. The national patrimony, the store of wealth or accumulated reserves of a national economy, is often extended from its base connoting the mere national capital and built infrastructure to include the national artistic patrimony. On this basis, export of certain important works of art may be regulated, delayed or forbidden outright. Certain foreign works of art become embedded in the national patrimony with time: the horses of St Mark's Basilica, Venice, are unlikely to be returned to Istanbul, or the Mona Lisa to Italy. But see the Elgin Marbles.

4. A qualification for certain awards, honours, or privileges — such as the Freedom of the City of London.