illegitimate

adj

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

   “[…] it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power which they obtain, by degrading themselves, is a curse […]”

   “The so-called interstellar space […] has not the properties of ordinary space. It will not conduct sound, nor can a human being move through it. It is therefore illegitimate to measure it in miles.”

   “Our attitude was that, to put it briefly, our presence there [in South Africa] was legal but illegitimate. We had an abstract right to be there, a birthright, but the basis of that right was fraudulent. Our presence was grounded in a crime, namely colonial conquest, perpetuated by apartheid.”

2. Not in accordance with the law.

   “[…] if things went on at this rate it would be doubtful soon whether ever again he would be able to win another election by methods legitimate or illegitimate.”

3. Not sanctioned by marriage.

   “If we credit the scandal of the former [i.e. his enemies], Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner’s wife with a common soldier.”

   “His illegitimate birth deprived him of the influence of a father until perhaps his fifth year […]”

4. Not sanctioned by marriage.

   “an illegitimate child”

   “I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in every thing illegitimate.”

   “‘This child,’ said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him, and laying his hand upon his head, ‘is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your father […]’”

5. (dated)Not sanctioned by marriage.

   “She had only to collect her memories, which proved to her that “anybody” regarded the illegitimate children as more rightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than illegitimate fathers.”

   “I heard last night that a what-do-you-call it?—claimant?—has arrived who says Pat Wayne is his illegitimate father.”

6. Not correctly deduced.

   “an illegitimate inference”

   “[…] in natural things we must have recourse […] to experience. And all reasoning that is not supported so, ought to be repudiated, or at least suspected to be illegitimate.”

   “[…] it is illegitimate to reduce an Equation, by subducting from one Side a Quantity when it is not to be destroyed, or when an equal Quantity is not subducted from the other Side of the Equation:”

7. Not authorized by good usage; not genuine.

   “an illegitimate word”

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

   “illegitimate union; illegitimate fertilization”

   “[…] the legitimate unions between the two forms of the above nine species of Primula are much more fertile than the illegitimate unions; although in the latter case pollen was always taken from a distinct plant of the same form.”

noun

1. A 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.”

verb

1. (transitive)To make illegitimate.