Forms: 3–8 successour, 4–6 successoure, (7 -er), 4– successor. [a. OF. (AF.) successour, -or (mod.F. successeur), = Pr., Pg. successor, It. successore, Sp. sucesor, ad. L. successor, -ōrem, agent-n. f. success-, succēdĕre to SUCCEED.] One who succeeds another in an office, dignity, function or position. Const. of, to (the predecessor), in, to, † of (the thing succeeded to). (Correlative to predecessor.)
Singular successor (Sc. Law): see SINGULAR a. 4 b.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 10440. Of him & of is successours of rome To holde euere engelond.
1338. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 72. To Frankis & Normanz … To Flemmynges & Pikardes … He gaf londes bityme, of whilk þer successoure Hold ȝit þe seysyne.
1382. Wyclif, Dan. v. 31. Darius of Mede was successour in the rewme.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), V. 43. He was Successour to Machomete, and of his Generatioun.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 189. He toke Clement by þe hond … and made hym pope and successor aftyr hym.
1546. Reg. Privy Council Scot., Ser. I. I. 37. Air and successour of tailze of umquhile Duncane Lawmond.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lxxi. 1. David … did carefully comend untoo God his sonne whom he should leave successor of his kingdom.
1611. Bible, Ecclus. xlvi. 1. The successor of Moses in prophesies.
1671. Milton, Samson, 1021. Thy Paranymph,… Successour in thy bed.
1679. Dryden, Troil. & Cress., Prol. 17. Where are the Successours to my name?
1766. Blackstone, Comm., II. 430. A gift to such a corporation, either of lands or of chattels, without naming their successors, vests an absolute property in them so long as the corporation subsists. Ibid., 431. The word successors, when applied to a person in his politic capacity, is equivalent to the word heirs in his natural.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. India, II. 359. Ahdád, the grandson and spiritual successor of Báyazid.
1864. Bryce, Holy Rom. Emp., xii. (1875), 188. Henry VI, the son and successor of Barbarossa, obtained possession of it [Naples and Sicily] by marrying Constantia the last heiress of the Norman kings.
b. transf. of a thing.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Man of Law’s T., 323. O sodeyn wo that euere art successour To worldly blisse.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., III. viii. 703. Intervals between the expiration of one Mutiny Act and the enactment of its successor.
Hence Successorship [-SHIP], the condition or position of successor, succession.
1627. H. Burton, Baiting of Pope’s Bull, 84. What is this to the purpose, to proue the Popes Vicarship or his Successors-ship?
1720. Gordon & Trenchard, Independ. Whig (1728), 436. Nor is there a Word in Scripture, whereby we can guess that they were intended to be Successors to the Apostles, much less that the Successorship was to continue to the End of the World.
1886. Rogers, Soc. Life Scotl., III. xx. 265. A class of persons might have existed … without any successorship.
1895. Cath. News, 27 July, 6. Three Irish Priests have been selected … in connection with the successorship to the late Most Rev. Dr. Moran, in the Bishopric of Dunedin N. Z.
