## AI Etymology
illegitimately comes from illegitimate + -ly, from Late Latin illegitimus, from in- ('not') + legitimus ('lawful'), from lex ('law'). Morphologically, the ending is part of the etymology: the suffix is attached to the older base named in the history, producing a later English derivative. In present English, the adverb sense is "in an unlawful, improper, or unauthorized manner", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as legitimate, illegitimate, and legitimacy. Its semantic neighborhood includes unlawfully, illegally, improperly, and wrongfully, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Latin legitimus and Latin lex.

## Topics
- Ethics & Social Judgment
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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illegitimately

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