Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The quality or fact of being legitimate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state of being legitimate; conformity to law, rule, or principle; natural or logical result; regularity; propriety; correctness: as, the legitimacy of a government, of an argument, or of a conclusion.
- noun Specifically Lawfulness of birth: opposed to bastardy.
- noun Directness or regularity of descent, as affecting the right of succession. See
legitimist , 2.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The state, or quality, of being legitimate, or in conformity with law; hence, the condition of having been lawfully begotten, or born in wedlock.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun the quality of being
legitimate orvalid ;validity
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun undisputed credibility
- noun lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law
Etymologies
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Examples
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Whereas authority refers to a specific position in an established government, the term legitimacy is used when describing a system of government itself - where government may be generalized to mean the wider 'sphere of influence.'
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"A Muslim prayer leader addressing worshippers in the capital seized on Saleh's use of the word "legitimacy" and asked "what legitimacy is this man talking about?
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This imbued the coins with a certain legitimacy in relation to the concocted stories of their discovery, intended to hide their true origins with persons closely tied to the Mint.
CLASSIC RARITIES: Adams-Carter 1804 Class III Silver Dollar : Coin Collecting News 2009
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How can the TNSG maintain legitimacy if one of their members violates the above portion of the law?
James Lynn Carr 2010
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If torture actually worked, we could debate whether the tarnish on our national legitimacy is worth the improved security, but torture doesn't work.
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And legitimacy is far more than the artifact of an observed tendency of people to obey institutional precepts; even the term precepts is conceptually slightly different from commands or orders.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Paternalistic versus Therapeutic? 2010
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Your legitimacy is beginning to look as legitimate as the Iranian government's.
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Its legitimacy is based on its capacity to deliver economically, not on bankrupt communist ideology.
History will see these cuts as one of the great acts of political folly Will Hutton 2010
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Republicans made the conscious decision to turn healthcare into a referendum on legitimacy, and I believe that much of that refusal to accept his legitimacy is fueled by the fact that he is not white.
Matthew Yglesias » Ethnocentrism and Small Government Hypocrisy 2010
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The report, released in late May 2009, states the Tribunal's legitimacy is threatened by charges of corruption and political interference.
Global Voices in English » Cambodia: Report outlines Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s latest troubles 2009
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