LEGITIMATE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... Howard, whose ear was being readjusted now by the doctor; "the code fixes our place, and it would not have been lawful to change it. If we could have stood at your side, or behind you, or in front of you, it—but it would not have been legitimate and the other parties would have had a just right to complain of our trying to protect ourselves from danger; infractions of the code are certainly not permissible in any ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... she repeated slowly, with the same fateful shudder. "Ah!—what if he should know that I have another husband living? Dare I reveal to him that I have two legitimate and three natural children? Dare I repeat to him the history of my youth? Dare I confess that at the age of seven I poisoned my sister, by putting verdigris in her cream-tarts,—that I threw my cousin from a swing at the age of twelve? That the lady's maid who incurred the displeasure ...

— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the biting chill of early morning. He doubted that any legitimate travelers came this way. Youssef would not have left them near a caravan route. He could only guess that the thief himself was coming back, and he grew colder at the thought. Perhaps Youssef had decided not to wait to soften ...

— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... all, not by decree, that the whole matter was finally regulated. So curious is popular fickleness that an Emperor who could boldly tyrannize in almost any other direction felt that he dared not take the risk of constituting himself a fountain of honor, such as legitimate monarchs were. ...

— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... they were with you," replied Dr. Leete. "You think that needs explaining," he added, as I looked incredulous, "but the explanation need not be long; the cost of the labor which produced it was recognized as the legitimate basis of the price of an article in your day, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the difference in wages that made the difference in the cost of labor; now it is the relative number of hours constituting a day's work in different trades, the maintenance of the ...

— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

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