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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
legitimate
I.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a legitimate grievance (=one that is reasonable)
▪ Many people feel that the rebels have a legitimate grievance.
a legitimate target (=one that it is fair to attack)
▪ The rebels claimed that trains carrying soldiers are a legitimate target.
a legitimate/valid excuse (=one that is true and that other people cannot criticize)
▪ He didn’t have a legitimate excuse for being late.
a valid/legitimate reason (=a good and acceptable reason)
▪ An employer can’t fire someone without a valid reason.
legitimate expectationslegal (= expectations based on someone's legal rights)
▪ The men have legitimate expectations of a fair hearing.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
perfectly
▪ The Bucharest police force sees its action as perfectly legitimate.
▪ Or was there a perfectly legitimate explanation?
▪ Elwood was carried off after a perfectly legitimate but massive hit delivered by the Springbok centre.
▪ But when the culprits were identified, it turned out that their activities were perfectly legitimate, if a little unusual.
▪ It is perfectly legitimate for the police to have that information.
▪ This may be perfectly legitimate but not all problems can be referred away. 2 Refer the parents for marriage guidance counselling.
▪ This is a perfectly legitimate inductive inference.
▪ Their function is to supply realism or local colour, and for these purposes their use is perfectly legitimate.
quite
▪ For quite legitimate reasons, later commentators have often left the problem aside.
▪ A meeting which just airs views is quite legitimate but every one present should be aware of it.
▪ And I also know that certain shops in Northern Ireland refused to display it because of the tricolour so that accusation is quite legitimate.
▪ Both these purposes are quite legitimate.
■ NOUN
authority
▪ To the extent that legitimate authorities have power over us, the pre-emption thesis governs our right attitude to them.
▪ Part of the state's legitimate authority rested on this acknowledgement and it was built into its hegemonic structure and consensus.
▪ Power is legitimate authority in that it is generally accepted as just and proper by members of society as a whole.
▪ It is an account of legitimate authority, whereas the phrase is often used to refer to defacto authorities.
▪ Ours is an attempt to explain the notion of legitimate authority through describing what one might call an ideal exercise of authority.
▪ According to Weber, the claims to legitimate authority are based on one or more of the following grounds: 1.
▪ But naturally not even legitimate authorities always succeed, nor do they always try to live up to the ideal.
▪ It means to believe that one has legitimate authority, or that that person has authority over one.
business
▪ The newsletter says institutions should satisfy themselves that funds held on behalf of public figures stem from legitimate business.
▪ I mean, since this is a legitimate business and all.
▪ In the case of the rent and electricity we can assume these are legitimate business expenses.
▪ I should have guessed you'd have a legitimate business.
▪ The reasons for this we consider to be legitimate business affairs.
▪ They too now see he is a man with whom no legitimate business can be done.
▪ He did this for money, and because he was too coarse and stupid to survive in the world of legitimate business.
▪ But there seemed no one about who was not already occupied with his own legitimate business.
claim
▪ Such families would therefore have no legitimate claim to nursery provisions and other facilities.
▪ They missed the opportunity, but they gained what some would later consider to be a legitimate claim to intervention.
concern
▪ However, legitimate concern about improvement must be tempered by the countless instances when communication certainly is effective.
▪ But Dan has a legitimate concern about depth in center field.
▪ These they see as legitimate concerns for those working in health.
▪ When you permit these legitimate concerns to spill over into your work performance, your career often suffers.
▪ Now, there are also legitimate concerns about the quality of our civil service.
expectation
▪ I think that the case is based upon what nowadays would be described as a legitimate expectation of being heard.
▪ Lord Denning M.R. stated that where there was no legitimate expectation of being heard there was no requirement for a hearing.
▪ This legitimate expectation was recognized only in public law and not in private law.
▪ Here the individual might have a legitimate expectation that the licence would be renewed.
▪ He has probably thus created a legitimate expectation that he will continue to apply this policy.
expectations
▪ The language of rights, legitimate expectations or privileges should not be elevated to any higher status.
▪ Decisions still emerge which are redolent of the pre-1964 era, such as those which manipulate the distinction between rights and legitimate expectations.
grievance
▪ The misconception, however, is that once a legitimate grievance has been dealt with, the violence will end.
heir
▪ No, she may give me her money and my legitimate heir, and that is all.
▪ In all three cases the Church seems to have been trying to prevent lords from siting legitimate heirs.
▪ And so at last, though not happily nor of one mind, Lachlan was named as the legitimate heir of Duart.
▪ She is usually noble-born, and crucially, she alone is allowed to bear legitimate heirs.
interest
▪ But I do think that we are becoming more involved in the Livesey affair than our legitimate interest justifies.
▪ Payne had trouble distinguishing between those with legitimate interests and those without.
▪ The public may be interested in whether a bid is made, but it has no legitimate interest to defend.
▪ The pharmaceutical industry had a legitimate interest in seeing that their own branded drugs were prescribed.
▪ In determining what is a legitimate interest the librarian can safely rely upon one guide only - the law of the land.
▪ Until it does so, the Government can not defend the Scotch Whisky Industry's legitimate interests. 7.
means
▪ Thirdly, ritualism, abandoning the goals but sticking rigidly to the legitimate means of achieving them.
reason
▪ But the jury accepted that a page of the statement had been substituted for legitimate reasons.
▪ He or she is trying to find legitimate reasons not to allow you to speak with Mr Smith.
▪ For quite legitimate reasons, later commentators have often left the problem aside.
▪ None of the legitimate reasons for the artificial Wednesbury sense of the term apply here.
▪ There were legitimate reasons, of course, to build a fair number of those thousands of dams.
▪ Similarly, shyness is constantly invoked as a legitimate reason for failure to do something.
▪ Others will continue to have legitimate reason to visit Prague.
right
▪ Universities were genuinely held to have little legitimate right to say how this should be done.
▪ This is not about depriving people accused of crimes of their legitimate rights, including the presumption of innocence.
▪ Authority is the legitimate right to exercise power.
▪ The pharmaceutical companies that were taken to task by Elliott have a legitimate right to protect their intellectual property.
▪ And no murderer can enjoy legitimate rights to the fruits of murder.
target
▪ Basil used his weapons with restraint and on legitimate targets.
▪ For those sixty seconds you are not a legitimate target, nor can you fire your own weapon.
▪ The Unita rebel movement claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the train was carrying munitions and was a legitimate target.
▪ There is no excuse, no nods and winks, no legitimate targets.
▪ There are no legitimate targets, be they members of the security forces or civilians.
use
▪ Does the concept of fideism have any coherent and legitimate use in a postmodern world?
▪ Along with the legitimate uses of force, there may be abuses.
▪ Certain types of knives that have no legitimate use - such as flick, gravity and butterfly knives - are banned.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
legitimate business operations
▪ a legitimate reason
▪ At least three of the dead woman's relatives have a legitimate claim to her house.
▪ He had a legitimate reason for being late.
▪ He is a criminal who runs a legitimate business as well.
▪ How can I be sure that an on-line business is legitimate?
▪ It is legitimate to suggest that taxes should affect people with higher incomes more than they affect poorer people.
▪ Safety is an obvious and legitimate concern.
▪ The legitimate government was overthrown in a coup.
▪ The government has refused to recognise the far-right group as a legitimate political party.
▪ The way governments treat their people is a legitimate concern for the international community.
▪ Tobacco smuggling into the UK is seriously affecting the profits of legitimate importers.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A meeting which just airs views is quite legitimate but every one present should be aware of it.
▪ Along with the legitimate uses of force, there may be abuses.
▪ At about the same time, his two legitimate sons died of the plague.
▪ Surely these are all legitimate stratagems for the diarist-and using them would be a pardonable offence.
▪ The problem is, only one of the companies apparently holds legitimate patent rights to the breakthrough.
▪ Thus the masses have in different ways become legitimate candidates for underdevelopment and misery.
▪ To express constructive criticism and voice well researched concerns is of course healthy and legitimate.
▪ Whether or not they were legitimate, many children failed to survive their early critical years.
II.verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Liberal democracy has been concerned most explicitly with legitimating the power of the state, or public power.
▪ The role of Parliament became largely but not wholly one of legitimating the measures put before it.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Legitimate

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.

To enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate vice.
--Milton.

Legitimate

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.

  2. Lawfully begotten; born in wedlock.

  3. Authorized; real; genuine; not false, counterfe`t, or spurious; as,$legitimate poems of Chaucer; legitimate inscriptions.

  4. 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.
    --Macaulay.

  5. Following by logical sequence; reasonable; as, a legitimate result; a legitimate inference.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
legitimate

mid-15c., "lawfully begotten," from Middle French legitimer and directly from Medieval Latin legitimatus, past participle of legitimare "make lawful, declare to be lawful," from Latin legitimus "lawful," originally "fixed by law, in line with the law," from lex (genitive legis) "law" (see legal). Transferred sense of "genuine, real" is attested from 1550s. Related: Legitimately.

legitimate

1590s, from Medieval Latin legitimatus, past participle of legitimare (see legitimate (adj.)). Related: Legitimated; legitimating.

Wiktionary
legitimate

Etymology 1

  1. 1 In accordance with the law or established legal forms and requirements; lawful. 2 conform to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards; valid. 3 authentic, real, genuine. 4 (senseid en lawfully begotten)Lawfully begotten, i.e., born to a legally marry couple. (from mid-14th century) 5 Relating to heredity rights. Etymology 2

    v

  2. To make legitimate, lawful, or valid; especially, to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means. (from 1590)

WordNet
legitimate
  1. adj. 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]

legitimate
  1. v. 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"

Usage examples of "legitimate".

Though it was clearly a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, its Federalist proponents in Congress insisted, like Adams, that it was a war measure, and an improvement on the existing common law in that proof of the truth of the libel could be used as a legitimate defense.

The burghers of the Transvaal and of the late Orange Free State were legitimate belligerents, and to be treated as such--a statement which does not, of course, extend to the Afrikander rebels who were their allies.

If Allo and his crew were really legitimate, then it would just be a nuisance.

Sometimes he calls himself Ambar of Kotuwhen he wants to have dealings that are not, strictly speaking, legitimate.

Do not forget that the trade is a legitimate form of commerce that only an Act of Parliament can put an end to.

How may we know what is done to the animals thus traced to the door of every laboratory without being charged with impeding the legitimate researches of science?

What the merchants and other legitimate business travelers who used the road during the day would make of it was another problem, Anse thought.

Or was it a legitimate ploy to give Eugene the same advantage that Crush Bonbon hadaccesss to public opinion?

Crescent was some kind of a clearinghouse for him--a way to make his illegal payoffs look legitimate.

The legitimate aspiration and tendency of science is to eliminate craniotomy on the living and viable child from obstetric practice.

He looked down to discover that Cymry had brought him to the little gate in the Palace walls used by all the Trainees on legitimate business, and the Gate Guard was looking up at him with a hint of suspicion.

If those who hold the common doctrine of a carnal resurrection should carry it out with philosophical consistency, by extending the scheme it involves to all existing planetary races as well as to their own, should they cause that process of imagination which produced this doctrine to go on to its legitimate completion, they would see in the final consummation the sundered earths approach each other, and firmaments conglobe, till at last the whole universe concentred in one orb.

At one time, in modernity, this monopoly was legitimated either as the expropriation of weapons from the violent and anarchic mob, the disordered mass of individuals who tend to slaughter one another, or as the instrument of def ense against the enemy, that is, against other peoples organized in states.

It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce, or the exertion of the power of Congress over it, as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the effective execution of the granted power to regulate interstate commerce.

And while one would never suggest or encourage the adoption of extralegal resistance of what, after all, will be a legitimate, properly approved world government, it also behooves us to resist the potential abuse of power by the cabal which has obviously come together to secure the Ternathian domination of the entire explored multiverse.