Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use illegitimate in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Illegitimate means not conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards. Example: “It is therefore illegitimate to measure it in miles.”

Examples of illegitimate by meaning

adjectiveNot conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards.

  • It is therefore illegitimate to measure it in miles.1927, J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds”, in Possible Worlds and Other Essays, London: Chatto and Windus

adjectiveBorn to unmarried parents.

  • an illegitimate child

adjectiveHaving a child or children with a person to whom one is not married.

  • I heard last night that a what-do-you-call it?—claimant?—has arrived who says Pat Wayne is his illegitimate father.1935, Carolyn Wells, chapter 13, in The Beautiful Derelict, New York: Triangle Books, page 222

adjectiveNot correctly deduced.

  • an illegitimate inference

adjectiveNot authorized by good usage; not genuine.

  • an illegitimate word

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

  • illegitimate union; illegitimate fertilization

nounA person born to unmarried parents.

  • Her father and mine was a shameless man and of all his illegitimates I am the most unfortunate and poverty stricken.1966, Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, New York: Norton, Part 2, p. 96

More sentences with illegitimate

  • Similarly, foreign genetic material may be acquired at this locus by illegitimate recombination during genome concatemerisation.2015 July 16, “Spontaneous Deletion of an “ORFanage” Region Facilitates Host Adaptation in a “Photosynthetic” Cyanophage”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry concatemerisation
  • The spectral suggestion that Heathcliff was Earnshaw's illegitimate child won't go away.2011, Graham Joyce, “Narrative and Regeneration: The Little Monsters Of Templeton by Lauren Groff”, in Danel Olson, editor, 21st-century…. From the entry pseudoincest
  • James Smithson was the illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland, third creation.1936 October 26, “Science: Smithsonian's Year”, in Time, retrieved 27 Mar 2014. From the entry bar sinister
  • Had she been merely of illegitimate birth, he would have overlooked the bar sinister.1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter 16, in The House Behind The Cedars. From the entry bar sinister
  • There is contemporary evidence that Duchess Cecily Neville's father-in-law Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge, was illegitimate, as historian T.B.2007 January 2, Mar...@aol.com, “Richard, Earl of Cambridge (d. 1415) - illegitimate??”, in soc.genealogy.medieval (Usenet), retrieved 26…. From the entry 1380s
  • The rule utilitarian is still committed to including all preferences, no matter how morally illegitimate they may appear.2001, Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, page 29. From the entry win the day
  • Some marks are misinfluence, misrepresentation, illegitimate children, and misinterpretation of the ways of society in the prospective territories.1959, Red, White, and Black: Ernow and Erlong Past, Present and Future, page 41. From the entry misinfluence
  • Illegitimate iconolatry is an image consecrated to the worship of God but not prescribed by the Biblical ritual, e.g., the golden calf.2010, Martin Sicker, Pondering the Imponderable, page 112. From the entry iconolatry
  • On the Internet self-identifying Wigan hooligans claimed victory over ICF members, but the latter dismissed these claims since attacking 'scarfers' (non-hooligan supporters) was considered illegitimate.2006, Ramn Spaaij, Understanding football hooliganism, page 152. From the entry scarfer
  • Often we could do more, individually and corporately, to challenge without fear, the illegitimate authority of the government on deeply personal matters.1986, Gilberto Gerald, “With My Head Held Up High”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 35. From the entry corporately
  • Focusing on rules rather than acts may make it less likely for illegitimate preferences to win the day, but they still count on a par with all other preferences.2001, Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, page 29. From the entry win the day
  • The antiquarists, on the contrary, declare that such interpretations are illegitimate, distort the meaning of the text, bring in it concepts and methods alien to it.1994, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 151, page 249. From the entry antiquarist
  • Dr Erasmus Darwin set up his two illegitimate daughters as the governesses of a school, noting that natural children often had happier (because less pretentious) upbringings than legitimate.1990, Roy Porter, English Society in the 18th Century, Penguin, published 1991, page 264. From the entry natural
  • The best hope has been that friends and family would talk, a hope partly realized in this discreet but perceptive memoir by his illegitimate daughter. . . .1971 August 2, Brad Darrach, “Knee-High to Ezra Pound”, in Time. From the entry by-blow

Meaning of illegitimate

  1. adjective Not conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards.
  2. adjective Not in accordance with the law.
  3. adjective Not sanctioned by marriage.

Full definition of illegitimate

Questions about illegitimate in a sentence

How do you use illegitimate in a sentence?
Illegitimate is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “It is therefore illegitimate to measure it in miles.”
What is a short sentence with illegitimate?
“an illegitimate child”
What does illegitimate mean?
Illegitimate means not conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: illegitimate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use illegitimate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/illegitimate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.