How to Use legitimate in a Sentence

legitimate

adjective
  • There's no legitimate reason for prescribing this medication to a child.
  • How much of that was legitimate and how much of it was fool’s gold?
    — Jerry Beach, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2021
  • There is still much to fight for, and many legitimate ways to do it.
    — The Arizona Republic, 22 Apr. 2023
  • So why not build a legitimate contender for when the place is packed again?
    — John Shea, SFChronicle.com, 29 Aug. 2020
  • But in fairness to them, a lot of legitimate words do sound made-up.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 28 Feb. 2017
  • The light that would flash green if the tickets were legitimate did not.
    — Bryan West, USA TODAY, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Trump’s call to be an effort to find votes that were not legitimate.
    — Mike Cason | [email protected], al, 4 Mar. 2022
  • Brieske at his best can be a legitimate back-end threat for the Tigers.
    — Cody Stavenhagen, New York Times, 16 Mar. 2026
  • The guy is a legitimate weapon.
    — Chris Bumbaca, USA Today, 15 Sep. 2025
  • All of this is a legitimate target for us.
    — David Brennan, ABC News, 9 Feb. 2026
  • All of this is a legitimate target for us.
    — David Brennan, ABC News, 10 Feb. 2026
  • Kennedy said both sides in the case raised legitimate concerns.
    — Greg Stohr, Bloomberg.com, 4 June 2018
  • That debt was not driven by legitimate claims alone.
    — Vince Fong, Oc Register, 8 Jan. 2026
  • Now the revenge dress is seen as a legitimate way to get over a heartbreak.
    — Vanessa Santos, Glamour, 18 May 2026
  • Then the campaign to make the idea real and legitimate was to go place by place.
    — How To Save A Country, The New Republic, 6 Oct. 2022
  • That alone tells you this message is not legitimate.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Those are the schools that have a legitimate shot at winning a title.
    — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 17 Jan. 2020
  • There is a legitimate chance that this could be the final year of his career.
    — Evan Massey, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Sep. 2025
  • There are legitimate questions about whether any of this will turn out to be legal.
    — Erika D. Smith Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 27 Nov. 2021
  • But there are more legitimate candidates than there have seemed to be in past years.
    — Tim Reynolds, The Orlando Sentinel, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The man could be legitimate, a thief, or a criminal on the run.
    — Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 24 Aug. 2023
  • Start putting these seals on it to show this is official, this is legitimate.
    — National Geographic, 30 June 2020
  • If the papers are legitimate, this could be huge news for the culture.
    — Jessica McKinney, Billboard, 8 Nov. 2017
  • This was a legitimate concern for a while.
    — Deputy Managing Editor, Los Angeles Times, 13 Mar. 2026
  • In a legitimate ad, clicking such a button would close the ad.
    — Mark Hachman, PCWorld, 6 Nov. 2018
  • Bernard then asks Tim out on a legitimate date, which the young hero accepts.
    — NBC News, 11 Aug. 2021
  • That 5 could very well be legitimate.
    — Anna Skinner, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2025
  • But none of them can be dismissed as a legitimate threat, either.
    — Nathan Baird, cleveland, 11 July 2020
  • And plenty of events are streamed live, which means the couch is a legitimate option.
    — Hanna Wickes, Kansas City Star, 6 July 2026
  • None of this makes the grief Hope describes any less legitimate.
    — Dana Harris-Bridson, IndieWire, 11 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'legitimate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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