How to Use legitimate in a Sentence

legitimate

1 of 2 adjective
Definition of legitimatenext
Synonyms for legitimatenext
  • There's no legitimate reason for prescribing this medication to a child.
  • Even in many courtrooms, where there is valid concern about the privacy of defendants, judges recognize that camera coverage serves a legitimate public interest.
    — New Republic, 22 Feb. 1993
  • There is still much to fight for, and many legitimate ways to do it.
    — The Arizona Republic, 22 Apr. 2023
  • The light that would flash green if the tickets were legitimate did not.
    — Bryan West, USA TODAY, 26 Mar. 2024
  • The group tried to make the Amazon van look legitimate.
    — Thomas Brewster, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024
  • How much of that was legitimate and how much of it was fool’s gold?
    — Jerry Beach, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2021
  • Then the campaign to make the idea real and legitimate was to go place by place.
    — How To Save A Country, The New Republic, 6 Oct. 2022
  • The man could be legitimate, a thief, or a criminal on the run.
    — Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 24 Aug. 2023
  • So why not build a legitimate contender for when the place is packed again?
    — John Shea, SFChronicle.com, 29 Aug. 2020
  • With him, the Jazz have a legitimate chance at winning.
    — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 26 Feb. 2022
  • But in fairness to them, a lot of legitimate words do sound made-up.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 28 Feb. 2017
  • Some of the repairs were things like $15 to replace a light bulb, but some of there were legitimate.
    — George Stephens and Charles Jacobus, Houston Chronicle, 6 May 2018
  • Bernard then asks Tim out on a legitimate date, which the young hero accepts.
    — NBC News, 11 Aug. 2021
  • If the papers are legitimate, this could be huge news for the culture.
    — Jessica McKinney, Billboard, 8 Nov. 2017
  • Those are the schools that have a legitimate shot at winning a title.
    — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 17 Jan. 2020
  • Trump’s call to be an effort to find votes that were not legitimate.
    — Mike Cason | McAson@al.com, al, 4 Mar. 2022
  • The process moves at a snail’s pace, and there will be ample time and forums to vet the issues, many of which are legitimate.
    — Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Nov. 2023
  • To be fair, there are legitimate questions about how Biden and Trump will age.
    — Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2023
  • In a legitimate ad, clicking such a button would close the ad.
    — Mark Hachman, PCWorld, 6 Nov. 2018
  • In fact, though, the fast-food chain insists the offer is legitimate.
    — Chris Morris, Fortune, 28 Mar. 2024
  • Oregon finally has a legitimate deep threat again and a weapon in the middle of the field.
    — oregonlive, 26 Sep. 2022
  • To be sure, some legitimate concerns about a mass move to mail-in voting still need to be ironed out.
    — Lila MacLellan, Quartz, 6 Nov. 2020
  • Kennedy said both sides in the case raised legitimate concerns.
    — Greg Stohr, Bloomberg.com, 4 June 2018
  • That is, who is the legitimate lawmaker in the United States?
    — Christian Schneider, National Review, 22 June 2023
  • At the moment, the call seemed legitimate and there wasn’t much of an argument.
    — Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Oct. 2021
  • The rising junior is a legitimate all-purpose back — and a speedy one, at that.
    — The Courier-Journal, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Thomas has a legitimate shot at landing in the late first round if a team is sold on his defense and shooting.
    — Jeremy Woo, SI.com, 21 June 2018
  • There are legitimate concerns around the fires, Roberts said.
    — Madeline Holcombe, CNN, 17 Sep. 2020
  • Karako agreed that shooting it down poses a legitimate risk to people on the ground.
    — Denise Chow, NBC News, 3 Feb. 2023
  • There are legitimate questions about whether any of this will turn out to be legal.
    — Erika D. Smith Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 27 Nov. 2021
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legitimate

2 of 2 verb
  • Her tendency to be secretive only serves to legitimate their suspicions.
  • The first two are both two-time league MVPs, legitimate homegrown greats of the game.
    — Andy Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 July 2022
  • The next crisis may not come from challenges to legitimate slates of electors.
    — Jason Linkins, The New Republic, 5 Feb. 2022
  • At the moment, the pressing issue is how the Padres propose to jump from non-factor to legitimate contender.
    — Dennis Lin, sandiegouniontribune.com, 3 Dec. 2017
  • The Tigers impressive week to them from on the bubble of even making the tournament to legitimate contention for a No. 2 seed.
    — Brody Miller, NOLA.com, 27 May 2018
  • And Hoover, having learned his lesson in 1920, worked hard to legitimate his wartime actions.
    — Jack Goldsmith, The Atlantic, 22 Nov. 2022
  • The #MeToo movement helped a lot to legitimate female voices.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 28 May 2022
  • Cy Young Award winner gives Rangers legitimate ace to front the rotation.
    — Dallas News, 6 Dec. 2022
  • If the lockdown orders are lifted, and this transpires, Xi will no longer be able to legitimate his rule as superior to the decadence of the West.
    — Bobby Miller, National Review, 2 Dec. 2022
  • The White Man’s Burden,’ and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British empir[e] … and dehumanise people of colour.
    — Maya Jasanoff, The New Republic, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Would any legitimate fraudster or mule do that and then report on themselves?
    — CBS News, 23 Oct. 2022
  • In other words, the U.N. was not intended to end power politics, but to legitimate it.
    — Daniel Bessner, The New Republic, 21 Oct. 2020
  • The specific roles may vary based on the type of fraud being perpetrated, but the parallels to legitimate business are clear.
    — Mike Tuchen, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2023
  • But as polished as this new package looks, the visual overhaul comes with three issues, which range from nitpicks to legitimate concerns.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 5 June 2020
  • The ideologies and organization of the public schools are legitimated by the promise that America takes care of the poor and allows them to do better.
    — Titus Techera, National Review, 26 June 2019
  • Quarterback Trevor Lawrence definitely is no joke, giving these fans legitimate hope for the long term.
    — Los Angeles Times, 6 Feb. 2023
  • Now more than ever, the brand will lead its own rhythm, legitimating the value of time and connecting with people globally by getting closer to them in their own space and lives.
    — Eliza Huber, refinery29.com, 28 Apr. 2020
  • To legitimate the control machine in Palestine, the British raked their empire again, this time for ways of securing legal impunity.
    — The New Yorker, 28 Mar. 2022
  • Colorado residents who have complained for years about health effects said the study’s findings legitimate their concerns.
    — Bruce Finley, The Denver Post, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The coupon follows similar format to legitimate Kroger coupons, with an expiration date of August 30 and a barcode.
    — Holly Shively, ajc, 9 July 2018
  • Thus, defining something as hate speech doesn’t impact legitimate First Amendment rights.
    — Micha Danzig, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Nov. 2021
  • Over the course of their epic careers, the rivals legitimated the use of cosmetics for respectable women, along the way perfecting such vanity-table staples as the lipstick tube and the mascara wand.
    — Amy Fine Collins, HWD, 2 Mar. 2017
  • There is no guarantee that a transaction is secure, let alone legitimate.
    — Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022
  • In a country where even doctors and lawyers often make little money, a professional baseball contract offers one of the few gateways to legitimate wealth.
    — Connor Letourneau, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 July 2021
  • For decades, people have used DDoSes to flood sites with more traffic or computational requests than the sites can handle, denying services to legitimate users.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 1 Mar. 2022
  • One such element can be found in the Caddy's interior, which elevates it from nice truck to legitimate luxury SUV.
    — K.c. Colwell, Car and Driver, 19 Oct. 2020
  • Tennessee, however, has made the biggest and most difficult leap, going from the fringes of the Top 25 to legitimate national championship contender.
    — Ralph D. Russo, Chicago Tribune, 19 Oct. 2022
  • Sensitive technologies believed to be targeted to legitimate users and uses in the PRC are promptly forwarded to the military, whether their exporters know or not.
    — Roslyn Layton, Forbes, 28 Apr. 2021
  • The current offensive line can’t block legitimate SEC defensive fronts.
    — Christopher Smith, al, 1 Dec. 2020
  • This both legitimates the content of some of these users’ tweets—this isn’t just some random account talking—and allows them to amplify and elevate narratives in distinctly old-fashioned ways.
    — Nathaniel Friedman, The New Republic, 21 Oct. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'legitimate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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