Legitimacy

Definitions: Legitimacy

Legitimacy

Noun

1. Lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law.

2. Undisputed credibility.

Date "legitimacy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1754. (references)

Synonyms: Legitimacy

Synonyms: authenticity (n), genuineness (n). (additional references)

Antonym: illegitimacy (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Legality	Noun: legality; legitimacy, legitimateness.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Legitimacy

English words defined with "legitimacy": however. (references)

Specialty definitions using "legitimacy": democratic deficit ♦ UTILIZATION-REVIEW COORDINATOR. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	Legitimacy of International Organizations (reference) Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and the Islamic State (reference) Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia: The Quest for Moral Authority (Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific, Vol 1) (reference) Terrorism, Legitimacy and Power: The Consequences of Political Violence (reference) The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the fist and then the head of Pleignier, Carbonneau, and Tolleron.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Civil Liberties	China	The State Council's Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) is responsible for monitoring and judging the legitimacy of religious activity. (references)
	Ukraine	By law this process should take not more than 1 month, or 3 months if the State Committee requests an expert opinion on legitimacy of a group applying for registration; however, in practice this process can take up to 6 months or longer. (references)
	Congo	Unlike in previous years, when the Government appointed members of the political opposition to senior positions to gain legitimacy and weaken the opposition, President Joseph Kabila did not include any opposition politicians in the Government. (references)
Economic History	United Arab Emirates	The rulers hold power on the basis of their dynastic position and their legitimacy in a system of tribal consensus. (references)
	Paraguay	Though a 1967 constitution gave dubious legitimacy to Stroessner's control, Paraguay became progressively isolated from the world community. (references)
	Pakistan	All parties -- including those continuing to deny the legitimacy of the Zia/Junejo government -- were permitted to organize and hold rallies. (references)
Human Rights	Iran	The legitimacy of the Special Clerical Court (SCC) system continued to be a subject of debate. (references)
	Iran	Several of these figures dispute the legitimacy and position of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (references)
	Sri Lanka	In many cases, human rights monitors question the legitimacy of the criminal charges brought against these persons. (references)
Minorities	Austria	A large portion of the public perceive such groups as exploiting the vulnerable for monetary gain, recruiting and brainwashing youth, promoting antidemocratic ideologies, and denying the legitimacy of government authority. (references)
Political Economy	Vanuatu	Political legitimacy is based on majority rule. (references)
	BOLIVIA	Major structural reforms have further eroded the COB's legitimacy as the sole labor representative. (references)
Political Rights	Mexico	PRI state legislators questioned the legitimacy of this TEPJF-appointed Council and vowed to fight the "imposition" in the courts. (references)
	Russia	Challengers were able to defeat incumbents in many of the races for regional executive positions, and losing candidates generally accepted the legitimacy of the voting results. (references)
	East Timor	However, prior to its dissolution in the months preceding the CNRT received material support and derived legitimacy from its close relations with UNTAET; other parties did not enjoy the same advantages. (references)
Trade	Nigeria	Independent verification of the legitimacy of transactions is recommended. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Phrase(s)
Rush Limbaugh	Even Al Gore and the DNC's head punk, Terry McAuliffe, don't want to question Bush's legitimacy.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
Ronald Reagan	1981-1989	From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy.
George W. Bush	2001-2005	And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Legitimacy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Legitimacy" is used about 709 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	709	9,445

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "legitimacy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		ligjshmëri (law and order, lawfulness, legality), legalitet (lawfulness). (various references)

Arabic		‏مشروعية, ‏صحة (accuracy, authenticity, exactitude, fidelity, fitness, health, nearness, nicety, purity, soundness, trustiness, truth, validity, veracity), ‏أهلية (aptitude, aptly, competence, desert, domestication, neatness, qualification, qualifications), ‏شرعية (legality, rightness, validity). (various references)

Bulgarian		законност (law, legality, validity), законнороденост, легитимност. (various references)

Chinese		合法 (LAWFUL, legality, legally, legitimate, valid, validly). (various references)

Czech		legitimnost, zákonnost. (various references)

Danish		legitimitet. (various references)

Dutch		wettigheid. (various references)

Farsi		قانونی بودن (Legality), حقانیت , درستی (Accuracy, Honesty, Integrity, Justice, Precision, Rectitude, Truth), برحق بودن . (various references)

Finnish		laillisuus (lawfulness, legality). (various references)

French		légitimité. (various references)

German		legitimität (legitimateness), rechtmäßigkeit (justice, lawfulness, legality, rightfulness, rightness, soundness, warrantableness), Legitimierung (legitimization). (various references)

Greek		νομιμότητα (legality, righteousness). (various references)

Hebrew		ל�'יטימיות, חוקיות (lawfulness, legality). (various references)

Hungarian		törvényesség (legality), legalitás, legitimitás. (various references)

Indonesian		hak kekuasaan. (various references)

Italian		legittimit� (lawfulness, legality). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		正腹 , 嫡出 . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		せいふく (chief and vice-chief, conquest, happiness, original and copy, overcoming, regulation dress, reposition, subjugation, uniform), ちゃくしゅつ. (various references)

Korean		합법성. (various references)

Manx		neuoainjeragh (legitimate), leighoilys (lawfulness, legality), leighoilid (lawfulness, legality). (various references)

Pig Latin		egitimacylay

Portuguese		legitimidade (authenticity, correctness, permit). (various references)

Romanian		caracter legitim (lawfulness). (various references)

Russian		законность (legality, nomocracy, validity, vigor, vigour). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		legitimitet, zakonitost (legality, rightness), opravdanje (excuse, justification, vindication, warranty). (various references)

Spanish		legitimidad (legality). (various references)

Swedish		laglighet (legality). (various references)

Turkish		yerindelik (appositeness, opportuneness, pertinence, propriety, suitability, timeliness), yasallık (lawfulness, legality, soundness, validity), soydan geçme, meşruluk, mantıklılık (logicalness, sequence), haklılık. (various references)

Turkmen		kanunylyk (legality), kanunlylyk (legality). (various references)

Ukranian		закономірність, законність (justice, legality, nomocracy, rightfulness, validity, vigor, vigour), законнонародженість. (various references)

Vietnamese		tính hợp pháp tính chính đáng, tính chính thống. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Sumerian	3100 BCE-2500 BCE	zid. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words ending with "legitimacy": illegitimacy. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Legitimacy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: legimitacy, legitamacy, legitime. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "legitimacy" (pronounced luji"tumusē)
8	-j i" t u m u s ē	illegitimacy.
6	-t u m u s ē	intimacy.
4	-m u s ē	diplomacy, pharmacy, primacy, supremacy.
3	-u s ē	accuracy, adequacy, advocacy, Argosy, aristocracy, autocracy, bureaucracy, candidacy, celibacy, confederacy, conspiracy, courtesy, degeneracy, delicacy, democracy, ecstasy, embassy, fallacy, fantasy, Geodesy, heresy, hypocrisy, idiocy, illiteracy, immediacy, inaccuracy, inadequacy, intricacy, jealousy, legacy, leprosy, literacy, lunacy, meritocracy, obstinacy, Odyssey, papacy, piracy, pleurisy, policy, privacy, prophecy, secrecy, surrogacy, theocracy.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-g-i-i-l-m-t-y"
	-2 letters: megacity.
	-3 letters: agility, ciliate, climate, gametic, meatily, metical, myalgic, mycelia.
	-4 letters: acetyl, aiglet, amylic, atelic, cagily, camlet, elicit, gaiety, gamely, gamily, gelati, gimlet, gleamy, italic, legacy, ligate, malice, milage, tamely, timely.
	-5 letters: agile, aglet, agley, amice, amici, amity, cagey, camel, cilia, claim, cleat, clime, cymae, eclat, email, etyma, gaily, gamey, gamic, gimel, glace, gleam.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-e-g-i-i-l-m-t-y"
	+2 letters: illegitimacy.
	+3 letters: enigmatically, magnificently.
	+5 letters: commiseratingly, gravimetrically.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.