justificative

Unconsciously insincere, like the majority of people in their justificative confessions, Balzac often allowed his heart to intrude where it had no business to be present.

Balzac 2003

The article is dignified, reasonable, and entirely predictable, essentially a pièce justificative, adding nothing new to the controversy or to the original essay apart from the substitution of DNA for the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a test of scientific literacy.

The Scientific Imagination Himmelfarb, Gertrude 1963

Its emphasis on treaties and boundaries has led to the idea that it was compiled from the archives as a sort of diplomatic pièce justificative in a controversy with Babylonia over the possession of a definite territory.

Assyrian Historiography

Clearly, this is the language of a display inscription and not of a diplomatic piece justificative.

Assyrian Historiography

It is inserted as what the French call a _pièce justificative_ in Pitcairn's Criminal

The Book-Hunter A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author John Hill Burton

But that it could have been used as a piece justificative, with all its errors, when the Babylonians could at once have refuted it, is incredible.

Assyrian Historiography

Unconsciously insincere, like the majority of people in their justificative confessions, Balzac often allowed his heart to intrude where it had no business to be present.

Balzac Frederick Lawton

Unconsciously insincere, like the majority of people in their justificative confessions, Balzac often allowed his heart to intrude where it had no business to be present.

Balzac Lawton, Frederick 1910

I am loth to rake up any of these ancient scandals from their well-deserved oblivion; but I must make good a statement which may seem overcharged to the present generation, and there is no _pièce justificative_ more apt for the purpose or more worthy of such dishonour than the article in the _Quarterly Review_ for July,

Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work 1904

I am loth to rake up any of these ancient scandals from their well-deserved oblivion; but I must make good a statement which may seem overcharged to the present generation, and there is no piece justificative more apt for the purpose or more worthy of such dishonour than the article in the Quarterly Review for July,

Thomas Henry Huxley A Sketch Of His Life And Work Mitchell, P Chalmers 1900