1.   People who run countries have all too often fallen for the notion that sporting success somehow confers political legitimacy.

2.   The vulgar tongue abounded with colloquialisms suggesting that a particular term conferred a legitimacy which would have been made questionable by a more generalised synonym for stealing.

3.   Blackspace projects begin with a formal launch, a process that confers automatic legitimacy on them.

4.   A visit by an American official would confer legitimacy on a regime that continues to flout international law.

5.   According to the founding principles of this country, legitimacy is conferred only by consent of the governed.

6.   All this makes nationalism a particularly interesting force in China, given its potential not just for conferring legitimacy on the government but also for taking it away.

7.   He added that he had skipped the event because he was afraid it would confer legitimacy on something that should still be on the drawing board.

8.   It does no good to argue to conservatives, as liberals often do, that federal dollars confer legitimacy on worthy projects and attract private dollars.

9.   Its purpose is to foster a political point of view, to confer legitimacy on an individual or group deemed politically correct by the prize committee.