legitimize

The move is one of the boldest yet to legitimize the billions of dollars worth of gold unearthed by informal miners, a business often associated with worker exploitation and environmental damage.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026

Since then, the company has worked to legitimize itself further.

From Barron's ● May 27, 2026

But even that conversation appears to legitimize the entire fund, as if within these “victims,” there’s a class of people that should not be compensated, but within the greater class, there are people who should?

From Slate ● May 26, 2026

Flaunting their knighthood as a mark of status but discarding it the moment it requires true honor, they treat their vows only as an invented tradition, a set of rituals to legitimize their own power.

From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2026

“We need to legitimize this situation,” he said now, balancing the ashtray on his belly.

From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

“It definitely legitimizes the entire space when you have the world’s largest and arguably one of the most important companies dropping this,” Wedbush’s Legault said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

Fighting Tyson legitimizes him even more, and if Paul’s able to win, it’s likely to propel him to a world title fight.

From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2024

It argued that the web designer’s victory in that case legitimizes the termination of a female counselor who is married to another woman due to the high school’s freedom of speech.

From Slate ● Jul. 25, 2023

“I think having them call me in and put me on the stand legitimizes my story and who I am,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2023

A poor devil, but we receive him into our set, for he has talent—that legitimizes.

From The Argonauts by Jeremiah Curtin

Some opposed the measure, though, arguing it legitimized illegal businesses and could give the city a reason to keep them around.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026

The Declaration of Independence legitimized the cause of the rebels but also empowered them to brand loyalists as traitors who could be legally sentenced to death.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026

Medieval belts also managed a celebration of the pregnant silhouette, but devotion to Mary rather than patriotic “populationism” legitimized it.

From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2025

Lincoln had to step gingerly, for a declaration of war against his own people was loathsome but more importantly would have legitimized the Confederacy as a nation able to establish diplomatic ties internationally.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 30, 2024

“Biko, wear something nice. Kainene will be dressing up too,” her mother had added, as if mentioning her twin sister somehow legitimized everything.

From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Rather than serving as "an impartial chronographic work," the researchers suggest it may instead have functioned as "a legitimizing canon of kings, which was periodically updated to remove short-lived or parallel Neo-Assyrian rulers."

From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026

Renewed U.S. government interest and new quantum AI models from Nvidia are legitimizing the quantum computing space.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

But conciliation carries the risk of legitimizing the court’s most indefensible actions.

From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2025

And it’s largely harmful because it perpetuates the practice by legitimizing it, drawing upon the respect we typically hold for health care providers.

From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2024

The discovery of America was crucial in legitimizing innovation because within forty years no one disputed that it really was an unprecedented event, and one that could not be ignored.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton