justify
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈd͡ʒʌstɪfaɪ/
Forms: form: justifies
form: justifying
form: justified
form: justified
form: justifie
Etymology: From Middle English justifien, from Old French justifier, from Late Latin justificare (“make just”), from Latin justus, iustus (“just”) + ficare (“make”), from facere, equivalent to just + -ify.
Senses: examples: text: How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?
text: Paying too much for car insurance is not justified.
text: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th’ Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: Like all public expenditure, Access for All has to compete with other deserving demands. For example, how can you justify spending a couple of million pounds installing lifts at a station such as Achnasheen, which has 2,420 annual users, when that sum would buy a life-saving machine for a hospital? How do you decide on a minimum number of annual station users to justify that expenditure?
ref: 2023 August 23, Anthony Lambert, “Expanding the family and disabled markets”, in RAIL, number 990, page 53:
glosses: To provide an acceptable explanation for.
examples: text: Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.
text: Unless the oppression is so extreme as to justify revolution, it would not justify the evil of breaking up a government, under an abstract constitutional right to do so.
ref: 1861, Edward Everett, The Great Issues Now Before the Country, An oration delivered at the New York Academy of Music, July 4, 1861, New York: James G. Gregory, page 8:
text: Preservation of two railway routes between Belfast and Derry could no longer be justified and one of them must go.
ref: 1956 May, “Transport in Ulster”, in Railway Magazine, page 280:
glosses: To be a good, acceptable reason for; warrant.
examples: text: The text will look better justified.
topics: media
publishing
typography
glosses: To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.
examples: text: I cannot justify whom the law condemns.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
text: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 13:39:
glosses: To absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin.
examples: text: She felt no need to justify herself for deciding not to invite him.
text: And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 16:15:
text: […] I was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my errors […]
ref: 1848, Anne Brontë, “Chapter 13”, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
glosses: To give reasons for one’s actions; to make an argument to prove that one is in the right.
examples: text: She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been,
By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all;
When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge
She is thy very princess.
ref: c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: […] say
My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.
ref: c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
glosses: To prove; to ratify; to confirm.
topics: law
glosses: To show (a person) to have had a sufficient legal reason for an act that has been made the subject of a charge or accusation.
examples: text: J'USTIFYING BAIL, practice, is the production of bail in court, who there justify' themselves against the exception of the plaintiff.
ref: 1839, John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union, volume I, Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson, page 557:
topics: law
glosses: To qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property.
Synonyms: vindicate
Derived terms: dexify
justifyingly
justifying space
overjustify
rejustify
self-justify
the ends justify the means
unjustify
Related terms: -fy
just
justifiable
justifiably
justification
unjustified