Also 5–6 legyttymat(e, 6 -ytymat, -ittimat. [ad. med.L. lēgitimāt-us, pa. pple. of lēgitimāre to declare to be lawful, to cause to be regarded as lawful offspring, f. L. lēgitimus lawful, f. lēg-, lēx law.
Etymologically, the word expresses a status which has been conferred or ratified by some authority; = LEGITIMATED. In English, however, it has taken the place of the older LEGITIME, and even in the earliest examples shows no trace of the original participial sense.]
1. Of a child: Having the status of one lawfully begotten; entitled to full filial rights. Said also of a parent, and of lineal descent. (The only sense in Johnson.)
According to English law, all children are legitimate who are born in lawful wedlock, and no others. According to the civil and canon law, a child born of unmarried parents who might at the time lawfully contract marriage becomes legitimate if his parents afterwards are lawfully married.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. ccxxv. 253. This Kynge Wyllyam vsed alwey lemmans, wherfore he dyed without issu legyttymat.
1555. Eden, Decades, 137. The children of their owne wyues they counte to bee not legitimate.
1602. Marston, Antonio’s Rev., V. v. Wks. 1856, I. 141. Thy true begotten, most legitimate And loved issue.
1683. Brit. Spec., 173. By Lineal and Legitimate Descent the true and unquestionable Heir.
1754–62. Hume, Hist. Eng., Hen. III., II. 54. The common law had deemed all those bastards who were born before wedlock: By the canon law they were legitimate.
1827. Jarman, Powell’s Devises (ed. 3), II. 347. A person who at the date of the will was dead, leaving … no legitimate children.
1841. Lane, Arab. Nts., I. 62. The offspring of his female slave … if begotten by him … he may recognise as his own legitimate child.
1882. A. Macfarlane, Consanguinity, 4. Legitimate co-parent of a child.
† b. transf. Genuine, real: opposed to ‘spurious.’ Obs.
1551. Bible, Apocrypha, To Rdr. They are not receaued nor taken as legyttymate and leafull, as wel of the Hebrues as of the whole Churche.
1634. T. Johnson, Parey’s Chirurg., XXVI. vii. (1678), 633. By the Taste … we … distinguish the true legitimate [Medicins] from the adulterate.
1699. Bentley, Phal., 327. Mr. B. maintains Astypala to be a legitimate word, because we read it Ἀστυπάχη in the present copy of Scylax.
1804. Europ. Mag., XLV. 347/2. The above remarks do not apply to what I shall call collections of legitimate remains.
1818. Todd, Legitimate … 2. Genuine; not spurious: as, a legitimate work, the legitimate production of such an author.
2. Conformable to law or rule; sanctioned or authorized by law or right; lawful; proper.
1638. R. Baker, trans. Balzac’s Lett. (vol. II.), 13. An evill that should last so long, might in some sort seeme to be made legitimate.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. 1738, I. 226. The Text therfore uses this phrase, that they shall be one flesh, to justify and make legitimate the rites of Marriage-bed.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 257. A Legitimate Husband.
1832. W. Irving, Alhambra, I. 79. They [Moors] are a nation … without a legitimate country or a name.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vii. II. 238. What would, under ordinary circumstances, be justly condemned as persecution, may fall within the bounds of legitimate selfdefence.
1852. H. Rogers, Ecl. Faith (1853), 436. There is … a legitimate way of influencing the will.
1859. J. Cumming, Ruth, ix. 152. Its ancient and legitimate owner.
b. Normal, regular; conformable to a recognized standard type; † spec. of a gun (cf. BASTARD a. 6 a); † of a disease (= EXQUISITE). In Sporting, applied to flat-racing as opposed to hurdle-racing or steeplechasing. The legitimate drama: the body of plays, Shakespearian or other, that have a recognized theatrical and literary merit; also ellipt. (Theatr. slang) the legitimate.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., V. 64. Gunners call them Legitimate Pieces, as have due length of their Chase, according to the height of their bores; Bastard Pieces are such as have shorter Chases, than the Proportion of their Bore doth require.
1684. trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., V. 161. The Physician must not use astringents, in a legitimate Burning fever.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Delivery, A legitimate delivery is that which happens at the just term, i. e. in the tenth lunar month.
1821. Byron, M. Faliero, Pref. 18, note. While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre … we did our best to bring back the legitimate drama.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiv. III. 468. Tillotson still keeps his place as a legitimate English classic.
1877. Era Almanack, 97. Always willing to patronise the legitimate.
1884. Yates, Recoll., I. v. 211. My youthful admiration of Shakespeare and the legitimate drama.
1888. Sportsman, 28 Nov. (Farmer). The winding up of the legitimate season.
c. Of a sovereign’s title: Resting on the strict principle of hereditary right. Hence, said of a sovereign, a kingdom, etc.
1821. H. Coleridge, Ess. (1851), I. 8. We like the style of the Legitimate poets, as we respect the court and Legitimate monarchs.
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, III. vi. But in these days a great capitalist has deeper roots than a sovereign prince, unless he is very legitimate.
1860. Sat. Rev., 14 April, 457/1. It is not in irony, but in sober earnest, that we express our belief, that any throne is, in practice, called legitimate which has not had the consent of the nation to its … existence.
1885. Fairbairn, Catholicism, iii. (1899), 96. In literature it [the Catholic Revival] appeared as Romanticism, in politics as legitimate and theocratic theory.
d. Sanctioned by the laws of reasoning; logically admissible or inferrible.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), x. 221/2. If the first principles be clear and evident, and every syllogism in some legitimate mode or figure, the conclusion of the whole must infallibly be admitted.
1814. D. Stewart, Hum. Mind, II. iii. § 1. 247. Every such process of reasoning … may be resolved into a series of legitimate syllogisms.
1840. Mill, Diss. & Disc. (1875), I. 397. Both [methods] were legitimate logical processes.
1850. McCosh, Div. Govt., III. ii. (1874), 409. We have followed them [principles] to their legitimate consequences.
1855. Prescott, Philip II., I. II. ix. 249. This bloody catastrophe was a legitimate result of the policy which he advised.
† 3. quasi-adv. Obs.
1578. Galway Arch., in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 427. Both he and his chyldren of his body legytymat begotten.
B. sb. 1. a. A legitimate child.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus., I. (1879), 97. I had rather we had many legittimats than many illegittimates.
1842. C. Whitehead, R. Savage (1845), III. vi. 381. Their legitimates do them small honour, sometimes.
1865. Dublin Univ. Mag., I. 8. Legitimates and natural children were brought up … or shaken up together.
b. A legitimate sovereign. Also, one who supports or advocates the title of such sovereigns. Cf. A. 2 c.
1821. H. Coleridge, Ess., On Parties in Poetry (1851), I. 6. Waller, a true Legitimate in politics.
1830. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 268. The experiment of what has been termed constitutional government, has been tried and failed. The legitimates refused this, while they might have had it.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Napoleon, Wks. (Bohn), I. 374. No longer the throne was occupied … by a small class of legitimates.
† c. Austral. slang. (See quot. and cf. LEGITIMACY 4.) Obs.
1827. P. Cunningham, 2 Yrs. N. S. Wales, II. xxiv. 116. Our society is divided into circles as in England…. Next, we have the legitimates, or cross-breds,—namely, such as have legal reasons for visiting this colony; and the illegitimates, or such as are free from that stigma.
† 2. Something to which one has a legitimate title. Obs. rare–1.
1649. Milton, Eikon. (1770), 31. Many princes have been rigorous in laying taxes on their subjects by the head, but of any king heretofore that made a levy upon their wit, and seized it as his own legitimate, I have not whom beside to instance.
