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A strong or sweet scent. [Obs. & Illegitimate.] Sir T. Herbert.

Capable of inheriting or receiving by inheritance. This son shall be legitimate and heritable. Sir M. Hale. Heritable rights (Scots Law), rights of the heir; rights to land or whatever may be intimately connected with land; realty. Jacob (Law Dict.).

The state of being illegitimate. Blackstone.

The state of being illegitimate; illegitimacy. [Obs.] Gardiner had performed his promise to the queen of getting her illegitimation taken off. Bp. Burnet.

To render illegitimate; to bastardize.

The principles of the Jacobins; violent and factious opposition to legitimate government. Under this new stimulus, Burn's previous Jacobitism passed towards the opposite, but not very distant, extreme of Jacobinism. J. C. Shairp.

Conformable to law; allowed by law; legitimate; competent.

The state, or quality, of being legitimate, or in conformity with law; hence, the condition of having been lawfully begotten, or born in wedlock. The doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come back to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of Legitimacy. Macaulay.

The act of making legitimate. The coining or legitimation of money. East.

To legitimate.

One who supports legitimate authority; esp., one who believes in hereditary monarchy, as a divine right.

To legitimate.

Miscreated; illegitimate; forged; as, miscreate titles. [Obs. or Poet.] Shak.

Formed unnaturally or illegitimately; deformed. Spenser. Milton.

In the manner or condition of a mulier; in wedlock; legitimately. [Obs.]

accordance with the laws which govern events, feelings, etc.; not exceptional or violent; legitimate; normal; regular; as, the natural consequence of crime; a natural death. What can be more natural than the circumstances in the behavior of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day Addison.…

y which a leg ball is sent to the off side, or an off ball to the side. The pull is not a legitimate stroke, but bad cricket. R. A. Proctor.

clergy; preachers as a class; also, preaching. I say the pulpit (in the sober use Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, The most important and effectual guard, Support, and ornament of virtue's cause. Cowper.

The act of revolting; an uprising against legitimate authority; especially, a renunciation of allegiance and subjection to a government; rebellion; as, the revolt of a province of the Roman empire. Who first seduced them to that foul revolt Milton.

- a term applied to a style of performance in which some tones are held longer than their legitimate time, while others are proportionally curtailed.