Pl. stirpes. [L. stirps stem, stock: see STIRP.]
1. Law. A branch of a family; the person who with his descendants forms a branch of a family. Chiefly in L. phrase per stirpes: see PER prep. I. 10; also in stirpes.
1681. Stair, Inst. Law Scot., XXVI. iv. 84. They would not succeed in capita, the whole Successors getting Equal Share, but in stirpes.
a. 1768. Erskine, Inst. Law Scot., III. viii. § 12 (1773), 547. Succession in stirpes, or by the stock, makes the partition … according to the number of the stocks or stirpes from whom these heirs derive right.
1771. Encycl. Brit., II. 937/2. The share belonging to their ascendent or stirps, whom they represent.
1862. Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., App. iii. 430. His brothers succeed to the exclusion of his issue female, and each brother becomes a stirps.
2. Zool. Used variously (often vaguely) as a term of classification: a family, subfamily, group, etc.
1863. Huxley, Man’s Place Nat., II. 103. The … practically infinite divergence of the human from the Simian stirps.
3. Bot. (See quot.)
1866. Treas. Bot., 1101/1. Stirps, a race or permanent variety: as the Red Cabbage.
