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"
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"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:
“It’s a really legitimate concern that, if I leave, what are the odds that there is still a chair for me when I return?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
The authors have called for a "tick box" to enable staff to access records which confirms they have legitimate reason to do so.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
A legitimate critic doesn’t stumble into the job just to point and laugh; they write because they have real passion for what they cover.
From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2026
As such, we typically have to follow the laws with uneven burdens, so long as the law is “neutral,” “generally applicable,” and rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 2026
On the contrary, he had at least three legitimate ways of rising, the greatest of which was the Catholic Church.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
“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
One consequence is that truth, evidence and science fall prey to the language of mystification, which legitimates a tsunami of ignorance and the further collapse of morality and civic courage.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2020
The partitioning legitimates also generously made a present of an aristocratic constitution to the suffering Poles.
From Secret History of the Court of England, from the Accession of George the Third to the Death of George the Fourth, Volume I (of 2) Including, Among Other Important Matters, Full Particulars of the Mysterious Death of the Princess Charlotte by Lady Anne Hamilton
Moreover, this attack on the welfare state and common good is increasingly legitimated and normalized through tyrannical forms of education in a variety of sites, especially in the broader cultural sphere.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 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
No. No, the only absolutely clear legacy of JFK’s slaying is that it legitimated the conspiracy theorists.
From Time ● Nov. 19, 2013
The end of the legitimated spammers in a double bind of filtering and changes to the law was one rumble in spam’s tectonic shift toward an almost wholly criminal domain.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 19, 2013
In England an illegitimate child can never be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents.
From Woman and Womanhood A Search for Principles by C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby
Mr. Kirsch identifies two recent changes that reflect a legitimating shift in attitudes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Egypt will pursue its own interests given the importance of securing the Egypt-Sinai border, but Cairo can also play an important leadership role, leading the Arab governments in legitimating any deal.
From Slate ● Oct. 25, 2023
"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
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
Plainly, it is not a known premise legitimating a result, not a sound argument proving a conclusion: it is merely a conceit, devised to explain and fortify a theory already embraced from other considerations.
From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by William Rounseville Alger
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
