LEGITIMATE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Legitimate

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/lədʒˈɪtəmət/ Listen

adjective

Legitimate adj.

Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful; as, legitimate government; legitimate rights; the legitimate succession to the throne; a legitimate proceeding of an officer; a legitimate heir.

Lawfully begotten; born in wedlock.

Authorized; real; genuine; not false, counterfeit, or spurious; as,$legitimate poems of Chaucer; legitimate inscriptions.

Conforming to known principles, or accepted rules; as, legitimate reasoning; a legitimate standard, or method; a legitimate combination of colors. "Tillotson still keeps his place as a legitimate English classic."

Following by logical sequence; reasonable; as, a legitimate result; a legitimate inference.

verb

Legitimate v. t. (past & past part. legitimated; pres. part. legitimating) To make legitimate, lawful, or valid; esp., to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means; as, to legitimate a bastard child. "To enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate vice."

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Etymology of 'Legitimate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Legitimate" Quotes from Famous Books

... himself; and between the races, people who were strolling upon the ground contrived to approach very near the carriage in which the master of Maudesley Abbey sat, wrapped in Cashmere shawls, and half-hidden under a great fur rug, in legitimate ...

— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... denied that this note so published is in itself a legitimate ground of war to Spain if she chooses to avail herself of it C—— believes that she is not yet sufficiently ready, and will prefer remaining at peace. Meantime she has made the greatest haste to grant all our demands which had been so long ...

— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... government rather as a means of promoting individual interests than as an instrument created solely for the service of the people. Corruption in some and in others a perversion of correct feelings and principles divert government from its legitimate ends and make it an engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many. The duties of all public officers are, or at least admit of being made, so plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance; and I can ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... enthusiasts on the subject have said to the contrary—that, by its very nature, the drama can attain independent and legitimate growth only in centers of human habitation, where the stage—very necessarily—epitomizes the tendencies of the times, and, if occupied by a real literature in every sense, is the self-expression of a great community. As late as 1886 a sober-minded author on Scandinavian literature was ...

— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... shamelessly glad when her superior, over there at the Settlement House, informed her that she would be required to go to a dance-hall at South Chicago that night—a terrible place, which might well have been called "The Girl Trap." This gave Kate a legitimate excuse to ask for Ray's company, because he had besought her not to go to such places at night ...

— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

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