v. [f. LEGITIMATE a. + -IZE.] trans. To render legitimate or lawful, in various senses, esp. to render (a child) legitimate by legal enactment or otherwise.
1791. Mackintosh, Vind. Gall., Wks. 1846, III. 32. The approbation of the men legitimatizes the government.
1853. J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk. (1876), I. [II.] I. iii. 115. The Turk does not deign to legitimatize his possession of the soil he has violently seized.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), II. vii. 158. She might have been legitimatized by act of parliament.
1868. Foulkes, Ch. Creed or Croton’s C., 60. The wily forger … sought to legitimatise them by the high authority which he claimed.
1883. Daily Tel., 20 June, 7/4. The alteration … will have the effect of legitimatizing the offspring of past marriages.
Hence Legitimatized ppl. a.
1856. Doran, Knts. & their Days, xvii. 285. The legitimatised son of himself [Louis XIV.] and Madame de Montespan.
1885. Athenæum, 29 Aug., 271/2. Joan Beaufort, the legitimatized daughter of John of Gaunt.
