legitimate
Americanadjective
-
according to law; lawful.
the property's legitimate owner.
- Antonyms:
- illegitimate
-
in accordance with established rules, principles, or standards.
- Synonyms:
- sanctioned
-
born in wedlock or of legally married parents.
legitimate children.
-
in accordance with the laws of reasoning; logically inferable; logical.
a legitimate conclusion.
- Synonyms:
- valid
-
resting on or ruling by the principle of hereditary right.
a legitimate sovereign.
-
not spurious or unjustified; genuine.
It was a legitimate complaint.
-
of the normal or regular type or kind.
-
Theater. of or relating to professionally produced stage plays, as distinguished from burlesque, vaudeville, television, motion pictures, etc..
an actor in the legitimate theater.
verb (used with object)
-
legitimates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
legitimated,
past participle, past
-
legitimating
present participle
-
to make lawful or legal; pronounce or state as lawful.
Parliament legitimated his accession to the throne.
- Synonyms:
- legalize
-
to establish as lawfully born.
His bastard children were afterward legitimated by law.
-
to show or declare to be legitimate or proper.
He was under obligation to legitimate his commission.
-
to justify; sanction or authorize.
His behavior was legitimated by custom.
noun
-
the legitimate, the legitimate theater or drama.
-
a person who is established as being legitimate.
adjective
-
born in lawful wedlock; enjoying full filial rights
-
conforming to established standards of usage, behaviour, etc
-
based on correct or acceptable principles of reasoning
-
reasonable, sensible, or valid
a legitimate question
-
authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with law
-
of, relating to, or ruling by hereditary right
a legitimate monarch
-
of or relating to a body of famous long-established plays as distinct from films, television, vaudeville, etc
the legitimate theatre
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
delegitimationnoun
-
legitimacynoun
-
legitimatenessnoun
-
legitimationnoun
-
postlegitimationnoun
-
delegitimateverb (used with object)
-
nonlegitimateadjective
-
quasi-legitimateadjective
-
legitimatelyadverb
-
quasi-legitimatelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
legitimatesimple
-
legitimatessimple
-
have legitimatedperfect
-
has legitimatedperfect
-
am legitimatingprogressive
-
are legitimatingprogressive
-
is legitimatingprogressive
-
have been legitimatingperfect progressive
-
has been legitimatingperfect progressive
Past
-
legitimatedsimple
-
had legitimatedperfect
-
was legitimatingprogressive
-
were legitimatingprogressive
-
had been legitimatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of legitimate
First recorded in 1485–95, legitimate is from the Medieval Latin word lēgitimātus (past participle of lēgitimāre to make lawful). See legitim, -ate 1
Explanation
Something legitimate is the real deal — according to the law. Legitimate has other variations of meaning. To legitimate something is to make it legal, either by passing a law or publicly recognizing it as in accordance with the law. A government can be legitimized by being invited to world talks, or a movie by winning a prestigious award.
Vocabulary lists containing legitimate
The Real Deal: Synonyms for "True"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "J," "K," and "L"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Related parties have business or personal ties and transactions between them can have legitimate reasons, but they also pose potential conflicts of interest and require disclosure and typically extra regulatory scrutiny.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Reddit Marketing Agency promises on its website to post comments for clients using “profiles that moderators recognize as legitimate community members” and reduce the visibility of negative comments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
It’s hard to tell when, exactly, raising legitimate concern about a woman celebrity’s appearance became synonymous with your run-of-the-mill misogyny or bullying.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026
The method takes advantage of normal communications produced by legitimate users connected to a WLAN.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026
Somehow, the words felt more legitimate shaped by the rise and fall of his yeshivish cadence.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
“But someone like Carlson is also important because he legitimates those ideas, making them seem less radical when viewers see them.”
From New York Times ● May 15, 2022
“Selling them solidifies and legitimates the selling of our trauma,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2021
“When ‘winning’ becomes everything, and winning means dehumanizing the other side for short‐term gain, it legitimates increasingly extreme behavior on both sides,” Mr. Drutman said.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 5, 2020
Blight is only partly right, in that the greatest threat to our society is a collective ignorance that legitimates forms of organized forgetting, modes of social amnesia, and the death of civic literacy.
From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2020
"Well then," said I, "necessity legitimates my advice; for it is the only way to save our lives."
From The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) by Daniel Defoe
The market was legitimated by its own success, as experienced in people's daily lives.
From Salon ● May 7, 2020
When Wade says he couldn’t admit what happened to him because his success and well-being in many ways legitimated the story of his entire family’s fragmentation and even his father’s suicide—that makes sense to me.
From Slate ● Mar. 3, 2019
The graffiti is first; Klara’s more culturally legitimated art comes after.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 21, 2015
No. No, the only absolutely clear legacy of JFK’s slaying is that it legitimated the conspiracy theorists.
From Time ● Nov. 19, 2013
To other depreciated coins he gave back the honorable name which they had lost, and compelled his factors to accept them as legitimated and rehabilitated.
From The Invisible Lodge by Jean Paul
"After legitimating his position in broader Israeli circles, he will proceed to the realms that not all agree on - namely the West Bank," Asa-El said.
From Reuters ● Dec. 30, 2022
We are not legitimating their views by asking them questions, nor by publishing their answers; we are doing the work of reporting.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2022
James Baldwin was right in connecting the long durée of economic and racial injustice to the legitimating power of ideas and education.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2021
Medicalization can be a boon to people afflicted with a previously unnamed or unrecognized condition, giving them access to care and legitimating their suffering.
From Time ● Apr. 5, 2014
Cæsar himself became cardinal, September 20, 1493, the stain of his birth having been removed by the Cardinals Pallavicini and Orsini, who had been charged with legitimating him.
From Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day by Ferdinand Gregorovius
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
