justify
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: law
media
publishing
typography
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.
Base: just
Affixes: -ify
Inflected forms:
form: justifies
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: justifying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: justified
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: justified
pos: verb
tags: past
form: justifie
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: To provide an acceptable explanation for.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?
Paying too much for car insurance is not justified.
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.
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?
gloss: To be a good reason behind a normally-unacceptable action; to warrant.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.
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.
Preservation of two railway routes between Belfast and Derry could no longer be justified and one of them must go.
gloss: To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The text will look better justified.
gloss: To absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I cannot justify whom the law condemns.
And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
gloss: To give reasons for one’s actions; to make an argument to prove that one is in the right.
pos: verb
tags: reflexive
examples: She felt no need to justify herself for deciding not to invite him.
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.
[…] I was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my errors […]
gloss: To prove; to ratify; to confirm.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
[…] 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.
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
gloss: To qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property.
pos: verb
examples: J'USTIFYING BAIL, practice, is the production of bail in court, who there justify' themselves against the exception of the plaintiff.
Synonyms: vindicate
Related words: -fy
just
justifiable
justifiably
justification
unjustified
Derived words: dexify
justifyingly
justifying space
overjustify
rejustify
self-justify
the ends justify the means
unjustify
Translations: