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Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful; as, legitimate government; legitimate rights; the legitimate succession to the throne; a legitimate proceeding of an officer; a legitimate heir.

In a legitimate manner; lawfully; genuinely.

The state or quality of being legitimate; lawfulness; genuineness.

Unlawfully begotten; born out of wedlock; bastard; as, an illegitimate child.

In a illegitimate manner; unlawfully.

An illegitimate child. [R.]

To fix the paternity of; -- said of an illegitimate child; as, to affiliate the child to (or on or upon) one man rather than another.

Illegitimate by birth; bastard. [Archaic] Why bastard wherefore base Shak.

Illegitimately; in bastardy. [Archaic] Knolles.

A "natural" child; a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate child; one born of an illicit union.

r prove to be a bastard; to stigmatize as a bastard; to declare or decide legally to be illegitimate. The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock. Blackstone.

An illegitimate child; a bastard. The Aga speedily . . . brought her [his disgraced slave] to court, together with her pretty by-blow, the present Padre Ottomano. Evelyn.

or defense of a suit, whether by furnishing money or personal services, by one who has no legitimate concern therein, in consideration of an agreement that he shall receive, in the event of success, a share of the matter in suit; maintenance with the addition of an agreement to divide the thing in suit. See Maintenance…

emale descendant, in the first degree; the immediate progeny of human parents; -- in law, legitimate offspring. Used also of animals and plants.

ors and works of a like character in any language. In is once raised him to the rank of a legitimate English classic. Macaulay.

r, under which, according to the laws of heraldry, they where debruised in token of his illegitimate birth. Macaulay.

To dye in the wool (Fig.), to dye firmly; to imbue thoroughly. He might truly be termed a legitimate son of the revenue system dyed in the wool. Hawthorne.

Hence: To draw an illegitimate profit from; to speculate on; to put upon. [Recent] In no sense whatever does a man who accumulates a fortune by legitimate industry exploit his employés or make his capital "out of" anybody else. W. G. Sumner.

ans, as to the archbishops of Canterbury and York. -- Natural father, the father of an illegitimate child. -- Putative father, one who is presumed to be the father of an illegitimate child; the supposed father. -- Spiritual father. (a) A religious teacher or guide, esp. one instrumental in leading a soul to God. (b)…

A son; -- used in compound names, to indicate paternity, esp. of the illegitimate sons of kings and princes of the blood; as, Fitzroy, the son of the king; Fitzclarence, the son of the duke of Clarence.