<2019 “Immigrants who ‘make it’ are often seen to exemplify the American dream of upward mobility. The children of immigrants I spoke with, though, don’t want their families’ ‘success stories’ to legitimate an unfair system.”—New York Times, 27 April>
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and The Oxford English Dictionary
legitimate (lə-·jit’·ə·māte) transitive verb
1) To make lawful or legal; pronounce or state as lawful. [1494]
<Parliament legitimated his accession to the throne.>
<He was legitimated by at most 58.7 percent of the voters.>
2) To establish as lawfully born. [1577]
<His bastard children were afterward legitimated by law.>
<The principle that marriage of parents should legitimate prior-born children>
3) To show, affirm, or declare to be legitimate or proper; to justify, sanction, or authorize by word or example; to serve as justification for. [1611]
<He was under obligation to legitimate his commission.>
<By which means beer and light wines would be legitimated.>
<His behavior was legitimated by custom.>
<The untestable absolutes by which so much … human suffering is perennially legitimated>
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Note: I’m surprised that no dictionaries I checked ever mentioned “legitimatize” as a synonym. Also, it seems like there is overlap between definitions 1 and 3.
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The following quotes are from The Oxford English Dictionary:
____________________________<1972 “It frightens me because no notion in world history has ever legitimated the use of marijuana.”—Daily Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 26 March, page 7/2>
<1990 “‘We denounce apartheid in its intention, its implementation and its consequences as an evil policy,’ the so-called Rustenburg Declaration said. ‘The practice and defense of apartheid as though it were biblically and theologically legitimated is an act of disobedience to God, a denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a sin against our unity in the Holy Spirit.’”—The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts), 10 November, page 2>
<2003 “Finally legitimated as dialects, Ebonics and Spanglish have gained currency in popular culture.”—Kitchen Sink, Winter, page 48/2>
<2009 “The family of the new husband must pay a bride price . . ., which. . . legitimates any children the couple may have.”—Encyclopedia of Peoples Asia & Oceania. I. page 187/1>
<2013 “But because his parents were not married, U.S. authorities claimed he should have been ‘legitimated’ by age 21 in a process they claimed was governed by Mexican law, . . .”—Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Florida, 25 September, page T17>
<2016 “The Supreme Court has inflicted on Obama a defeat accurately described as the court’s most severe rebuke of a president since it rejected Harry Truman’s claim that inherent presidential powers legitimated his seizure of the steel industry during the Korean War.”—The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia), 21 February, page A17>
<2019 “Not only was the new administration ham-handed in dealing with Jewish issues – releasing a message on Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention the Jews at all, for instance – it winked enough at the alt-right to make them feel legitimated and loved.”—Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois), 1 April, page 9>
Ken Greenwald – April 29, 2019
