Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid.
- transitive verb To free (a human) of the guilt and penalty attached to grievous sin. Used of God.
- transitive verb To demonstrate sufficient legal reason for (an action taken).
- transitive verb To prove to be qualified as a bondsman.
- transitive verb To format (a paragraph, for example) so that the lines of text begin and end evenly at a straight margin.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To prove or show to be just or conformable to reason, justice, duty, law, or propriety; vindicate; warrant; uphold.
- To declare innocent or blameless; absolve; acquit; specifically, to free from the guilt or penalty of sin; reconcile to God.
- To prove (any one) to be.
- To make exact; cause to fit or be adapted, as the parts of a complex object; adjust, as lines or columns in printing.
- To judge; pass judgment upon; hence, to punish with death; execute.
- To agree; match; conform exactly; form an even surface or true line with something else: as, in printing, two lines of nonpareil and one of pica justify.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb (Print.) To form an even surface or true line with something else; to fit exactly.
- intransitive verb (Law) To take oath to the ownership of property sufficient to qualify one's self as bail or surety.
- transitive verb To prove or show to be just; to vindicate; to maintain or defend as conformable to law, right, justice, propriety, or duty.
- transitive verb To pronounce free from guilt or blame; to declare or prove to have done that which is just, right, proper, etc.; to absolve; to exonerate; to clear.
- transitive verb (Theol.) To treat as if righteous and just; to pardon; to exculpate; to absolve.
- transitive verb obsolete To prove; to ratify; to confirm.
- transitive verb (Print.) To make even or true, as lines of type, by proper spacing; to align (text) at the left (left justify) or right (right justify) margins of a column or page, or at both margins; to adjust, as type. See
Justification , 4. - transitive verb 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.
- transitive verb To qualify (one's self) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
provide anacceptable explanation for. - verb transitive To be a good, acceptable
reason for;warrant . - verb transitive To
arrange (text ) on apage or a computerscreen such that the left and right ends of alllines withinparagraphs arealigned . - verb transitive To
absolve , and declare to be free of blame or sin
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for
- verb let off the hook
- verb defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning
- verb adjust the spaces between words
- verb show to be right by providing justification or proof
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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But our English verb to be right had never taken a Hiphil form, or power, and for this reason, perhaps, the translators passed over, in many instances, to the Latin word justify, adopting that; though they sometimes manufacture a phrase that carries the causative meaning.
The Vicarious Sacrifice, Grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation. 1802-1876 1871
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The same tendency to justify from the surface and not trust the public to understand the depth has been visible in President Obama's partial explanations of Afghanistan.
David Bromwich: The Dying Art of Political Explanation David Bromwich 2010
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The same tendency to justify from the surface and not trust the public to understand the depth has been visible in President Obama's partial explanations of Afghanistan.
David Bromwich: The Dying Art of Political Explanation David Bromwich 2010
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The same tendency to justify from the surface and not trust the public to understand the depth has been visible in President Obama's partial explanations of Afghanistan.
David Bromwich: The Dying Art of Political Explanation David Bromwich 2010
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The same tendency to justify from the surface and not trust the public to understand the depth has been visible in President Obama's partial explanations of Afghanistan.
David Bromwich: The Dying Art of Political Explanation David Bromwich 2010
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The same tendency to justify from the surface and not trust the public to understand the depth has been visible in President Obama's partial explanations of Afghanistan.
David Bromwich: The Dying Art of Political Explanation David Bromwich 2010
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While hard to justify from a financial point of view, from a strategic point of view this makes sense.
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Huh? Remember, the distinction that the court has to justify is different punishment for sex with a minor.
IsThatLegal? 2004
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We have seen several examples in the last two years of situations which were handled very poorly and of decisions which were hard to justify from a purely economic point of view.
Quebec Update 1978
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The word justify means to declare or treat as righteous.
IndiaAmos commented on the word justify
In typography, justified text is "Copy in which all lines of a text – regardless of the words they contain – have been made exactly the same length, so that they align vertically at both the left and right margins." (http://www.typographicdesign4e.com/resources_glossary.html#anchor-w)
February 26, 2009