Word.ws English Dictionary

rough justice

rough justice noun: treatment or punishment that is not considered fair or in accordance with the law.

Noun

rough justice (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Treatment or punishment that is not considered fair or in accordance with the law.
    • At rallies in swing states from Arizona to North Carolina, this reporter has heard the cheers when Mr Trump roars that America has every right to fight back, even if that involves rough justice or being “so tough”, as he puts it.2016 November 5, “Donald Trump, vigilante”, in The Economist
    • […] Prosecutors around the country campaigned on promises to charge fewer juveniles as adults, stop prosecuting low-level marijuana possession and seek the death penalty less often. And they did so in places with well-deserved reputations for rough justice, including Chicago, Houston and Tampa...2017 March 25, James Forman Jr., “Justice Springs Eternal”, in The New York Times

Examples of rough justice in a sentence

  • And they did so in places with well-deserved reputations for rough justice, including Chicago, Houston and Tampa, Fla.2017 March 25, James Forman Jr., “Justice Springs Eternal”, in The New York Times:
  • The term lynch appears to have entered the language from Colonel Charles Lynch of Virginia, who served rough justice to Loyalists.2023 January 31, Daniel Immerwahr, “Did George Washington Burn New York?”, in The Atlantic:

Questions about rough justice

What does rough justice mean?
Rough justice means treatment or punishment that is not considered fair or in accordance with the law.
How do you use rough justice in a sentence?
And they did so in places with well-deserved reputations for rough justice, including Chicago, Houston and Tampa, Fla.
What part of speech is rough justice?
Rough justice is a noun.

Words near rough justice in the dictionary

  1. rough hawksbeard
  2. rough horsetail
  3. rough horsetails
  4. rough house
  5. rough it
  6. rough justice
  7. rough lemon
  8. rough lemons
  9. rough music
  10. rough number
  11. rough numbers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rough justice (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “rough justice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rough_justice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.