Legitimate vs Plausible - What's the difference?
legitimate | plausible |
In accordance with the law or established legal forms and requirements; lawful.
*
Conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards; valid.
* (rfdate) Macaulay
Authentic, real, genuine.
(senseid)Lawfully begotten, i.e., born to a legally married couple.
Relating to hereditary rights.
To make legitimate, lawful, or valid; especially, to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means.
Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.
*
Obtaining approbation; specifically pleasing; apparently right; specious.
Using specious arguments or discourse. (rfv-sense)
(obsolete) Worthy of being applauded; praiseworthy; commendable; ready.
As adjectives the difference between legitimate and plausible
is that legitimate is in accordance with the law or established legal forms and requirements; lawful while plausible is seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.As a verb legitimate
is to make legitimate, lawful, or valid; especially, to put in the position or state of a legitimate person before the law, by legal means.legitimate
English
Etymology 1
From . Originally "lawfully begotten," from (etyl) legitimer and directly fromAdjective
(en adjective)- legitimate''' reasoning; a '''legitimate standard or method
- Tillotson still keeps his place as a legitimate English classic.
- legitimate''' poems of Chaucer; '''legitimate inscriptions
Synonyms
(checksyns) * lawful, legal, rightfulAntonyms
* illegitimate, falseEtymology 2
Legal Latin, from legitimatus, past participle of (legitimo). See above for antecedentsVerb
(legitimat)Usage notes
* Forms of (legitimize) are about twice as common as forms of the verb legitimate in the US. * Forms of legitimate are somewhat more common than the forms of the verbs (legitimize) and (legitimise) in the UK combined.Synonyms
* legitimizeDerived terms
* delegitimateExternal links
* ----plausible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- In short, the twin assumptions that syntactic rules are category-based, and that there are a highly restricted finite set of categories in any natural language (perhaps no more than a dozen major categories), together with the assumption that the child either knows'' (innately) or ''learns (by experience) that all rules are structure-dependent ( =category-based), provide a highly plausible model of language acquisition, in which languages become learnable in a relatively short, finite period of time (a few years).
- a plausible''' pretext; '''plausible''' manners; a '''plausible delusion
- a plausible speaker
- (Bishop Hacket)
