English
scion
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈsaɪən/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈsaɪ.ən/, /ˈsaɪ.ɑn/
Noun

scion (plural scions)

  1. A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant of a distinguished family.
    • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, volume 3, chapter 1:
      No senate seats in council for the dead; no scion of a time-honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth.
    • 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, Clifton Pub. Co., paperback edition, page 24:
      It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion.
    • 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, Penguin, paperback edition, page 72:
      He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away?
  2. The heir to a throne.
  3. A guardian.
  4. (botany) A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting; a shoot or twig in a general sense.
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