legitimate

Plurallegitimates

Formslegitimates, legitimating, legitimated

1. 1
   adjective

   Authentic and genuine; not fake or counterfeit.

   Experts confirmed the manuscript was legitimate, not a forgery.

   Buyers want proof that the watch is a legitimate luxury brand.

   Similarauthentic, genuine, real

   Oppositefalse, illegitimate

   Note

   Applied to texts and objects, it separates the genuine from the spurious. The legitimate poems of Chaucer are the ones he actually wrote, and legitimate inscriptions are not later fabrications. Its opposites here are false and illegitimate. When authorship or origin is the question, genuine or authentic can usually stand in its place.

2. 2
   adjective

   Conforming to accepted rules, principles, or standards; valid.

   The referee ruled the goal legitimate under the competition's rules.

   Critics raised legitimate questions about the study's methods.

   Similarvalid, legal, fair, reasonable, proper

   Oppositeinvalid, illegitimate, unfounded, unjustified

3. 3
   adjective

   Permitted by law, or carried out in the way that established legal rules and procedures require.

   Investigators confirmed the funds came from legitimate sources.

   Only legitimate license holders may operate the equipment.

   Similarlegal, lawful

   Oppositeillegitimate

   Note

   The legal core of the word, and the one closest to the Latin: lēgitimus meant "lawful," originally "fixed by law," from lēx, "law." In everyday prose it stretches to anything done within recognized rules, such as a legitimate challenge on the football field or a legitimate traffic stop. Lawful and legal are its near synonyms. Its opposite is illegitimate.

4. 4
   adjective

   Born to a married couple, or made lawful afterward through legal recognition.

   Under old inheritance laws, only legitimate heirs received the estate.

   Her parents married before her birth, so she was legitimate in the eyes of the law.

   Similarrightful

   Oppositeillegitimate

   Note

   Here is where the word began: before it meant lawful in general, legitimate meant "lawfully begotten." It applies to a child. It covers both one born to married parents and one whose status was regularized afterward, through the verb's legal process. Historically the distinction governed inheritance, name and succession. Rightful is a near synonym, and illegitimate is the opposite.

5. 5
   adjective

   Joined in a marriage recognized by law.

   The documents named her as his legitimate wife.

   He introduced her as his legitimate spouse at the gathering.

   Similarrightful

   Note

   Applied to a spouse rather than a child, it marks the partner the law recognizes. It earns its place in contrasts with unrecognized unions, as when a caliph's four legitimate wives are set against his dozens of concubines. Rightful is a close synonym.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A person born to a couple who are legally married.

   As the sole legitimate, she received the entire inheritance.

   The old laws favored a legitimate over any child born outside marriage.

   Note

   As a noun it tends to appear in the plural, often set against its opposite. Sydney George Fisher's The True Benjamin Franklin (1898) describes "an extraordinarily mixed family of legitimates and illegitimates." William Hone (1830) uses "the legitimates" with the definite article to name a whole group. The plural is regular: legitimates.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To make something lawful or valid, especially to give a person the legal status of one born within marriage.

   The government moved to legitimate the new currency.

   A later statute legitimated all children of the union.

   Similarlegitimize, legalize, validate, sanction

   Oppositeinvalidate, outlaw

   Note

   The verb mirrors its Latin source, lēgitimō, "to make legal," whose participle also gave English the adjective. It is transitive and needs a direct object: a statute legitimates children, and a ruling legitimates a practice. Its forms are regular (legitimates, legitimating, legitimated). Its specialty is the legal act of giving a child the standing of one born within marriage.

8. 8
   adjective

   Relating to professional live stage drama, especially spoken plays, as distinct from musicals, vaudeville, or film.

   After years in television, the actor returned to the legitimate stage.

   Critics praised her move into legitimate theater.

   Similarstraight

   Note

   A theater-world label rather than a moral judgment. It marks professional spoken drama as distinct from musical comedy, variety, vaudeville and, later, cinema. The term arose to stake the dramatic stage's claim to artistic standing. It lives in fixed phrases such as the legitimate stage and legitimate theater, and it never implies that other entertainment is unlawful.

9. 9
   adjective

   Relating to a rightful claim inherited through family descent, as to a throne, title, or estate.

   The legitimate heir was crowned after his father's death.

   Rival families disputed who held the legitimate claim to the duchy.

   Similarrightful, lawful, true, legal

   Oppositeillegitimate

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