One who follows or comes into the place of another. 2. This term is applied more particularly to a sole corporation, or to any corporation. The word beir is more correctly applicable to a common person who takes an estate by descent. 3. It is also used to designate a person who has been appointed or elected to some office, after another person.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
One who succeeds to the rights or the place of another; particularly, the person or persons who constitute a corporation after the death or removal of those who preceded them as corporators. One who has been appointed or elected to hold an office after the term of the present Incumbent. Singular successor. A term borrowed from the civil law, denoting a person who succeeds to the rights of a former owner in a single article of property, (as by purchase,) as distinguished from a universal successor, who succeeds to all the rights and powers of a former owner, as in the case of a bankrupt or intestate estate. Suocurritur minori; faois est lapsus juventutis. A minor is [to be] aided; a mistake of youth is easy, [youth is liable to err.] Jenk. Cent. p. 47, case 89.