legitimacy

plural legitimacies

1. countableuncountableThe quality or state of being legitimate or valid; validity.

   The legitimacy based on a revolutionary essence was replaced by legitimacy with an ultranational, ultra-Yugoslav character.

   2000, Stuart Nagel, Handbook of Global International Policy, page 193

   1. broadlycountableuncountablepolitical sciencePublic acceptance of an institution, such as a government, corporation, or system.

      Democracy’s legitimacy stems from the consent of the governed.

      3 more examples

      Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. warned that if the court failed to stop the president, its own “institutional legitimacy” would be threatened.

      2026 April 18, Jodi Kantor, Adam Liptak, “The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court”, in The New York Times, retrieved 22 Apr 2026

      After decades of inequality and oppression, the regime had lost legitimacy with its own population.

      The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was seen by many as proof of capitalism’s legitimacy over communism.

2. countableuncountableLawfulness of birth or origin; directness of descent as affecting the royal succession.