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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

illegitimate.

Not conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards.

12 characters5 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ɪlɪˈd͡ʒɪtɪmət/[ɪlɨˈd͡ʒɪɾəmɨt]General-American/ɘlɘˈdʒɘtɘmɘt/New-Zealand
  1. Not conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards.

  2. Not in accordance with the law.

  3. Not sanctioned by marriage.

  4. Not sanctioned by marriage. Born to unmarried parents.

    an illegitimate child
  5. Not sanctioned by marriage. Having a child or children with a person to whom one is not married.

    dated
  6. Not correctly deduced.

    an illegitimate inference
  7. Not authorized by good usage; not genuine.

  8. Involving the fertilization of pistils by stamens not of their own length, in heterogonously dimorphic and trimorphic flowers.

Where this word comes from

First attested in 1536, from Latin illēgitimus, most likely an adapted borrowing of Middle French illegitime, equivalent to il- + legitimate, see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3).

noun/ɪlɪˈd͡ʒɪtɪmət/[ɪlɨˈd͡ʒɪɾəmɨt]General-American/ɘlɘˈdʒɘtɘmɘt/New-Zealand
  1. A person born to unmarried parents.

Where this word comes from

First attested in 1536, from Latin illēgitimus, most likely an adapted borrowing of Middle French illegitime, equivalent to il- + legitimate, see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3).

verb/ɪlɪˈd͡ʒɪtɪmeɪt/[ɪlɨˈd͡ʒɪɾəmeɪt]General-American/ɘlɘˈdʒɘtɘmeɪt/New-Zealand
  1. To make illegitimate.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

First attested in 1536, from Latin illēgitimus, most likely an adapted borrowing of Middle French illegitime, equivalent to il- + legitimate, see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.