Legitimate

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Legitimate \Le*git"i*mate\ (-m[asl]t), a. [LL. legitimatus, p.
     p. of legitimare to legitimate, fr. L. legitimus legitimate.
     See {Legal}.]
     1. 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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Lawfully begotten; born in wedlock.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Authorized; real; genuine; not false, counterfe`t, or
        spurious; as,$legitimate poems of Chaucer; legitimate
        inscriptions.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. Conforming to known principles, or accepted rules; as,
        legitimate reasoning; a legitimate standard, or method; a
        legitimate combination of colors.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Tillotson still keeps his place as a legitimate
              English classic.                      --Macaulay.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. Following by logical sequence; reasonable; as, a
        legitimate result; a legitimate inference.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Legitimate \Le*git"i*mate\ (-m[=a]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
     {Legitimated} (-m[=a]`t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. {Legitimating}
     (-m[=a]`t[i^]ng).]
     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.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           To enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to
           approve, even to legitimate vice.        --Milton.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  legitimate
       adj 1: of marriages and offspring; recognized as lawful [ant: {illegitimate}]
       2: in accordance with reason or logic; "a logical conclusion"
          [syn: {logical}]
       3: in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or
          principles; "legitimate advertising practices"
       4: authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with law; "a
          legitimate government" [syn: {lawful}, {licit}]
       v 1: make legal; "Marijuana should be legalized" [syn: {legalize},
             {legalise}, {decriminalize}, {decriminalise}, {legitimize},
             {legitimise}, {legitimatize}, {legitimatise}] [ant: {outlaw},
             {outlaw}, {outlaw}, {outlaw}]
       2: show or affirm to be just and legitimate
       3: make (an illegitimate child) legitimate; declare the
          legitimacy of (someone); "They legitimized their natural
          child"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  174 Moby Thesaurus words for "legitimate":
     acceptable, actionable, actor-proof, admissible, all-star,
     allowable, applicable, authentic, authoritative, authorize,
     authorized, ballet, balletic, binding, bona fide, by law, candid,
     card-carrying, certify, cinematic, cinematographic, cogent,
     competent, condonable, consistent, constitutional, correct,
     credible, de jure, defensible, dinkum, dispensable, dramatic,
     dramatical, dramaturgic, excusable, exemptible, expiable, fair,
     film, filmic, following the letter, forgivable, genuine, good, ham,
     hammy, histrionic, honest, honest-to-God, inartificial,
     inoffensive, judicial, juridical, just, justiciable, justifiable,
     kosher, lawful, lawmaking, legal, legalize, legislative, legit,
     legitimatize, legitimize, legitimized, licit, lifelike, literal,
     logical, melodramatic, milked, monodramatic, movie, natural,
     naturalistic, operatic, original, overacted, overplayed,
     pardonable, permissible, plausible, proper, pure, rational, real,
     realistic, reasonable, remissible, right, rightful, sanction,
     sanctionable, sanctioned, sane, scenic, self-consistent, sensible,
     simon-pure, simple, sincere, solid, sound, spectacular, stagelike,
     stageworthy, stagy, starstruck, statutory, stellar, sterling,
     substantial, sufficient, sure-enough, theaterlike, theatrical,
     thespian, thrown away, true, true to life, true to nature,
     true to reality, unadulterated, unaffected, unassumed, unassuming,
     uncolored, unconcocted, uncopied, uncounterfeited, underacted,
     underplayed, undisguised, undisguising, undistorted, unexaggerated,
     unfabricated, unfanciful, unfeigned, unfeigning, unfictitious,
     unflattering, unimagined, unimitated, uninvented, unobjectionable,
     unpretended, unpretending, unqualified, unromantic, unsimulated,
     unspecious, unsynthetic, unvarnished, valid, validate,
     vaudevillian, venial, verbal, verbatim, veridical, verisimilar,
     vindicable, warrant, warrantable, weighty, well-argued,
     well-founded, well-grounded, wholesome, within the law,
     word-for-word
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  LEGITIMATE. That which is according to law; as, legitimate children, are 
  lawful children, born in wedlock, in contradistinction to bastards; 
  legitimate authority, or lawful power, in opposition to usurpation.