Inheritance refers to a feature of Java programming that lets you create classes that are derived from other classes. A class that's based on another class inherits the other class. The class that is inherited is the parent class, the base class, or the superclass.
Polymorphism refers to a programming language's ability to process objects differently depending on their data type or class. More specifically, it is the ability to redefine methods for derived classes.
You can find more information in Objects and Java by Bill Venners Chapter 7:
Polymorphism and Interfaces
