Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality of being just; fairness.
  • noun The principle of moral rightness; decency.
  • noun Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
  • noun The attainment of what is just, especially that which is fair, moral, right, merited, or in accordance with law.
  • noun Law The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
  • noun The administration, system, methods, or procedures of law.
  • noun Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason.
  • noun Law A judge on the highest court of a government, such as a judge on the US Supreme Court.
  • idiom (do justice to) To treat adequately, fairly, or with full appreciation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To administer justice to; deal with judicially; judge.
  • noun Justness; the quality of being just; just conduct.
  • noun Vindication of right; requital of desert; the assignment of merited reward or punishment; specifically, execution or vindication of law.
  • noun Rights of jurisdiction.
  • noun Jurisdiction; authority.
  • noun Precision; justness; exactness.
  • noun A person commissioned to hold court for the purpose of hearing complaints, trying and deciding cases, and administering justice; a judge or magistrate: generally in specific uses: as, a justice of the peace; the justices of the Supreme Court.
  • noun Synonyms Right, Justice, Equity, Law; Justness, Justice. Right is the standard word for what ought to be. Justice and equity are essentially the same, expressing the working out of the principles of right under law, but law often contrary to justice or equity: hence the occasional remark, “That may be law, but it is not justice.Law in such a case means the interpretation of written law by the courts. A court of equity deals with and corrects the injustice of the working of the law. Equity more expressively represents the idea of fairness, and justice that of sacred rights. (See just and honesty.) Justness has a field of meaning peculiar to itself, by which we speak of the justness of observations, criticisms, etc.—that is, their conformity to admitted principles. As to conformity to right, we use justice for the abstract quality, justice of the person, and justness of the thing. We speak of the justness of a cause, a claim, a plea, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To administer justice to.
  • noun The quality of being just; conformity to the principles of righteousness and rectitude in all things; strict performance of moral obligations; practical conformity to human or divine law; integrity in the dealings of men with each other; rectitude; equity; uprightness.
  • noun Conformity to truth and reality in expressing opinions and in conduct; fair representation of facts respecting merit or demerit; honesty; fidelity; impartiality
  • noun The rendering to every one his due or right; just treatment; requital of desert; merited reward or punishment; that which is due to one's conduct or motives.
  • noun Agreeableness to right; equity; justness.
  • noun A person duly commissioned to hold courts, or to try and decide controversies and administer justice.
  • noun See under Bed.
  • noun See in the Vocabulary.
  • noun (Law) a judicial officer or subordinate magistrate appointed for the conservation of the peace in a specified district, with other incidental powers specified in his commission. In the United States a justice of the peace has jurisdiction to adjudicate certain minor cases, commit offenders, officiate at marriages, etc.; abbreviated JP.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or characteristic of being just or fair.
  • noun The ideal of fairness, impartiality, etc., especially with regard to the punishment of wrongdoing.
  • noun Judgment and punishment of a party who has allegedly wronged (an)other(s).
  • noun The civil power dealing with law.
  • noun A judge of certain courts. Also capitalized as a title.
  • noun Correctness, conforming to reality or rules.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun judgment involved in the determination of rights and the assignment of rewards and punishments
  • noun the quality of being just or fair
  • noun a public official authorized to decide questions brought before a court of justice
  • noun the United States federal department responsible for enforcing federal laws (including the enforcement of all civil rights legislation); created in 1870

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin iūstitia, from iūstus, just; see just.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English justice from Old French justise, justice (Modern French justice), from Latin iustitia 'righteousness, equity', from iustus "just", from ius 'right', from Old Latin ious, perhaps literally "sacred formula", a word peculiar to Latin (not general Italic) that originated in the religious cults, from Proto-Indo-European *yews-. Replaced native Middle English rightwished, rightwisnes "justice" (from Old English rihtwīsnes "justice, righteousness", compare Old English ġerihte "justice").

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Examples

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  • A simple farmer was walking along the road, his trusty donkey trailing behind. As he rounded a sharp bend in the trail a figure leaped out of the bushes behind him, and struck him a mighty blow to the head. When the poor farmer regained consciousness, he discovered his faithful donkey gone. He ran up the road and down the road searching and calling to the beast, but to no avail.

    Presently he came to a river, where he saw a man standing on the bank, wringing his hands and sobbing. Although the farmer did not recognize him, the man was the very assailant that had struck him and stolen his donkey. The farmer asked why he was so upset, and the thief replied, "I have dropped my purse, containing five hundred silver coins, into this dangerous stream. If you would jump in and retrieve it for me I will gladly give you half of its contents as your reward."

    The farmer thought to himself, "Praise be. When bad luck strikes, good luck must surely be close behind. The silver coins are worth much more than my lost donkey. Justice will prevail on this glorious day."

    So, he stripped himself and plunged into the cold waters, and the thief ran off with his clothes. --"Magnus Machina" by Jan Cox p.124

    January 17, 2008

  • Bueno, oroboros, por favor. Di nos, que paso con el burro? Estas torturandonos.

    January 17, 2008

  • El burro fue al mercado, por supuesto!

    January 19, 2008

  • "Tipping the scales at almost 300 pounds of power and with 20-inch guns at his disposal, Justice does indeed have a very long arm, and he'll pursue any adversary to the ends of the earth to prove it. Ask any of his opponents and they'll tell you that sometimes Justice hurts, and the scales always tip in his favor."

    (Official biography on the NBC American Gladiators website)

    September 6, 2008

  • here comes Justice!!!

    May 26, 2009

  • When good citizens seek justice, they are looking for a fair adjudication of affairs such that honest people striving to do the right thing (whether in a Kantian a priori fashion or otherwise) shall receive the benefits of their actions and their diametrically opposed actors of an evil bent shall receive substantive comeuppance. In TaxVampirespeke, justice has come to mean any way a politician or a politician's friend can stick it to the downtrodden or - better yet from an asset grabbing perspective - the financially blessed but politically impotent.

    May 27, 2010