intestate
In legal terms, if someone dies without having made a will, they're intestate. Your great aunt may have intended to leave all her money to her cats, but unfortunately for Flufferkins and Mr. Wiggles, she died intestate.
Like a lot of legal words, it might seem more straightforward to simply say, "without a will," but lawyers like to use Latin whenever possible. Intestate comes from the Latin intestatus, "without a will," from the root testari, "bear witness," which it shares with testament. When someone with a lot of money or property dies intestate, it can complicate things for the relatives they leave behind — it's not clear who gets what.
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having made no legally valid will before death or not disposed of by a legal will“he died intestate”“intestate property”antonyms:testatehaving made a legally valid will before death
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Vocabulary lists containing intestate
Cormac McCarthy, widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers, authored twelve novels, as well as plays, screenplays, and short stories, spanning the Western and post apocalyptic genres. McCarthy's first widespread success was the award-winning All the Pretty Horses. This was the first novel of his Border Trilogy, which included The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. A number of McCarthy’s novels were adapted into films; for example, No Country for Old Men which became a critical and commercial success, winning four Academy Awards. But it was his post-apocalyptic The Road which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. This tribute highlights McCarthy's illustrious career through quotes and biographical articles.
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