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 or valid; 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

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