Noun: legitimate
| Singular | legitimate |
| Plural | legitimates |
Sample Sentences
-
But should a “holy alliance of legitimates” extinguish it, it will be but for a season. [1831, Alexander Scott Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare:]
-
This extraordinarily mixed family of legitimates and illegitimates seems to have maintained a certain kind of harmony. [1898, Sydney George Fisher, The True Benjamin Franklin:]
-
His overweening pride received another shock through his new friends the legitimates. [1830, William Hone, Pamphlets and Parodies on Political Subjects:]
Nouns inflected like legitimate
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English legitimat, legytymat, from Medieval Latin lēgitimātus, perfect passive participle of Latin lēgitimō (“to make legal”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from Latin lēgitimus (“lawful”), originally "fixed by law, in line with the law," from Latin lēx (“law”). Originally "lawfully begotten".
2. The noun was derived from the adjective within English or earlier by substantivization (see -ate (noun-forming suffix)), the verb from the adjective by conversion (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)). See: Middle English Nouns '
legitimat', Latin Nouns '
lēgitimō', Latin Nouns '
lēgitimus', Latin Nouns '
lēx'.