pseudo-legality

A form of pseudolegality — The appearance of legality of something that is not actually legal; The use of courts, police, or legal procedures to accomplish pseudolegal results.

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Meanings

nounpseudo-legality (uncountable)
  1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of pseudolegality.

    Many executions by the military rebels were given a veneer of pseudo-legality by trials, although they were effectively little different from extra-judicial murder.

    2012, Paul Preston, The Spanish Holocaust
    2 more examples

    Isser Woloch sees this as one questionable episode in the public life of modern France, 'a nation where coups clothed in pseudo-legality have repeatedly changed the rules of the game'.

    2003, Geoffrey Ellis, The Napoleonic Empire

    Will it not also be obvious 'pseudo-legality' to have that which seeks to legitimize itself in order to defend intransigently a mechanism prepared to assure voting by the illiterates, prohibited by law?

    2014, John W. F. Dulles, Unrest in Brazil: Political-Military Crises 1955-1964
Cite this entry
APA

pseudo-legality. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pseudo-legality

MLA

“pseudo-legality.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pseudo-legality. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pseudo-legality,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pseudo-legality.

Source: pseudo-legality on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.