legitimate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Being in compliance with the law; lawful: a legitimate business.
2. adj. Being in accordance with established or accepted patterns and standards: legitimate advertising practices.
3. adj. Based on logical reasoning; reasonable: a legitimate solution to the problem.
4. adj. Authentic; genuine: a legitimate complaint.
5. adj. Born of legally married parents: legitimate issue.
6. adj. Of, relating to, or ruling by hereditary right: a legitimate monarch.
7. adj. Of or relating to drama of high professional quality that excludes burlesque, vaudeville, and some forms of musical comedy: the legitimate theater.
8. v. To make legitimate, as:
9. v. To give legal force or status to; make lawful.
10. v. To establish (a child born out of wedlock) as legitimate by legal means.
11. v. To sanction formally or officially; authorize.
12. v. To demonstrate or declare to be justified.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make lawful; establish the legitimacy or propriety of.
2. To render legitimate, as a bastard; invest with the rights of a legitimate child or lawful heir, as one born out of wedlock. Under the civil and canon laws operative in many European countries a bastard is legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents; but this is not the case under the laws of England and most of the United states.
3. According to law, rule, or precedent; agreeable to established principles or standards; in conformity with custom or usage; lawful; regular; orderly; proper: as, a legitimate king or government; the legitimate drama; a legitimate subject of debate; legitimate trade.
4. Specifically Of lawful birth; born in wedlock, or of parents legally married: as, legitimate children; a legitimate heir.
5. Justly based on the premises; logically correct, allowable, or valid: as, a legitimate result; legitimate arguments or conclusion.
6. Synonyms Legal, Licit, etc. See lawful.
7. n. By ellipsis, legitimate drama (which see, under legitimate).
8. n. An emigrant to Australia who had ‘legal reasons’ for emigrating.
9. n. A legitimate child.
10. n. Something to which one has a legal right. Milton, Eikon., 31.

Wiktionary

1. adj. In accordance with the law or established legal forms and requirements; lawful.
2. adj. Conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards; valid.
3. adj. Authentic, real, genuine.
4. adj. Lawfully begotten, i.e., born to a legally married couple.
5. adj. Relating to hereditary rights.
6. v. To make legitimate, lawful, or valid; especially, to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful.
2. adj. Lawfully begotten; born in wedlock.
3. adj. Authorized; real; genuine; not false, counterfe`t, or spurious
4. adj. Conforming to known principles, or accepted rules
5. adj. Following by logical sequence; reasonable.
6. v. To make legitimate, lawful, or valid; esp., to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. show or affirm to be just and legitimate
2. adj. authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with law
3. v. make (an illegitimate child) legitimate; declare the legitimacy of (someone)
4. adj. of marriages and offspring; recognized as lawful
5. v. make legal
6. adj. based on known statements or events or conditions
7. adj. in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles