Understanding ‘Legitimate’: Boost Your IELTS Vocabulary
Learn the meaning, usage, and importance of the word ‘legitimate’ to enhance your English vocabulary for the IELTS exam. This video covers the word’s definition, history, synonyms, antonyms, and common usage errors to help you achieve a higher band score.
Imagine you’re filling out an important application and you’re asked to provide legitimate reasons for your request.
You pause, wondering what exactly qualifies as legitimate. Today, we’re going to explore this word to help boost your IELTS vocabulary and aim for that 6.5 band score.
Word type: Legitimate is primarily used as an adjective, though it can also function as a verb in certain contexts.
Meaning: As an adjective, legitimate means conforming to the law or to rules, or able to be defended with logic or justification.
It can also mean genuine, real, or not fake.
Word history: The word legitimate comes from the Latin word legitimus, which means lawful or legal.
It entered the English language in the fifteenth century.
Antonyms: Some antonyms for legitimate include illegal, unlawful, invalid, and fraudulent.
Synonyms: Synonyms for legitimate include legal, lawful, valid, authentic, and genuine.
Examples use in sentences:
Here are three examples of how to use legitimate in sentences: The company conducted a legitimate survey to gather customer feedback.
She had legitimate concerns about the safety of the new product. The police officer asked to see some legitimate form of identification.
Common errors in use: One common mistake is confusing legitimate with legal. While they often overlap, not everything legal is necessarily legitimate in all contexts.
For example, an action might be technically legal but not considered legitimate by ethical standards.
Another error is mispronunciation. Remember, it’s pronounced luh-ji-tuh-muht, not lee-ji-tee-mate. To wrap up, legitimate is a versatile and important word in formal English.
It’s often used in academic, professional, and legal contexts. Remember its core meaning of being lawful, genuine, or justifiable.
Practice using it in your speaking and writing to demonstrate a more sophisticated vocabulary in your IELTS exam.
The more you use it, the more natural it will become.
