scion

Etymology

From Middle English sion, sioun, syon, scion, cion, from Old French cion, ciun, cyon, sion, from Frankish *kīþō, *kīþ, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, *kīþaz (“sprout”), from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, sprout”), same source as Old English ċīþ (“a young shoot; sprout; germ; sprig”), Old Saxon kīth (“sprout; germ”), Old High German kīdi (“offshoot; sprout; germ”). See also French scion and Picard chion. Doublet of chit.

noun

1. A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant of a distinguished family.
   Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends. 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind
   It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion. 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, paperback edition, Clifton Pub. Co., page 24
   He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away? 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 72
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.
   He used to think that the plums in this country weren’t good enough, and so he has reformed them, grafting scion to rootstock. 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 681