legitimate

Mr. Boorman comes across as donnish, astute and likable, but also arrogant and dismissive of legitimate concerns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

That said, there are legitimate reasons why settlement funds may be held temporarily, including resolving a dispute over attorney fees.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

“If you want to have an adult, legitimate, serious settlement discussion — no problem,” Bonta said during an appearance in Los Angeles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

But authorities there refused to extradite him and let him go, judging that any such Ukrainian attack would have been a legitimate act of war rather than a crime.

From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026

I’m totally counting it as a legitimate relationship, because if I ever felt this way about another aspect of nature, it would absolutely feel like cheating.

From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman

“But someone like Carlson is also important because he legitimates those ideas, making them seem less radical when viewers see them.”

From New York Times ● May 15, 2022

In his book Pyramids of Sacrifice, Berger writes that the "elite almost invariably legitimates its privileged position in terms of alleged benefits it is bestowing or getting ready to bestow upon 'the people.'"

From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2021

“Selling them solidifies and legitimates the selling of our trauma,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2021

“When ‘winning’ becomes everything, and winning means dehumanizing the other side for short‐term gain, it legitimates increasingly extreme behavior on both sides,” Mr. Drutman said.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 5, 2020

"Well then," said I, "necessity legitimates my advice; for it is the only way to save our lives."

From The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) by Daniel Defoe

Moreover, this attack on the welfare state and common good is increasingly legitimated and normalized through tyrannical forms of education in a variety of sites, especially in the broader cultural sphere.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2020

When Wade says he couldn’t admit what happened to him because his success and well-being in many ways legitimated the story of his entire family’s fragmentation and even his father’s suicide—that makes sense to me.

From Slate ● Mar. 3, 2019

The graffiti is first; Klara’s more culturally legitimated art comes after.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 21, 2015

No. No, the only absolutely clear legacy of JFK’s slaying is that it legitimated the conspiracy theorists.

From Time ● Nov. 19, 2013

That he is brewing something against the legitimated princes, and that he will profit by this to take away some more of their privileges.

From The Conspirators The Chevalier d'Harmental by Alexandre Dumas père

When their daughter became Elizabeth I in 1558, she restored Anne’s title and Anne’s image joined the legitimating Tudor lineup that proliferated in the long galleries of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026

As sociologist David Garland argues, their litigation strategy had the “unintended effect of legitimating capital punishment” and being a force for its conservation.

From Slate ● Oct. 1, 2024

"After legitimating his position in broader Israeli circles, he will proceed to the realms that not all agree on - namely the West Bank," Asa-El said.

From Reuters ● Dec. 30, 2022

On a larger scale, the educational force of the wider culture has been transformed into a spectacle for violence and trivialized entertainment, and a tool for legitimating ignorance.

From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2017

Cæsar himself became cardinal, September 20, 1493, the stain of his birth having been removed by the Cardinals Pallavicini and Orsini, who had been charged with legitimating him.

From Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day by Ferdinand Gregorovius