Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use justify in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Justify means to provide an acceptable explanation for. Example: “How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?”

Examples of justify by meaning

verbTo provide an acceptable explanation for.

  • How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?
  • Paying too much for car insurance is not justified.
  • 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?2023 August 23, Anthony Lambert, “Expanding the family and disabled markets”, in RAIL, number 990, page 53

verbTo be a good reason behind a normally-unacceptable action; to warrant.

  • Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.
  • Preservation of two railway routes between Belfast and Derry could no longer be justified and one of them must go.1956 May, “Transport in Ulster”, in Railway Magazine, page 280

verbTo arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are...

  • The text will look better justified.

verbTo give reasons for one’s actions; to make an argument to prove that one is in the right.

  • She felt no need to justify herself for deciding not to invite him.

More sentences with justify

  • The book of Job warns us against self-righteousness, since no man can justify himself to God.From the entry self-righteousness
  • I can't justify spending that much money on a meal, but YWMV since your recent inheritance has replenished your checking account.From the entry YWMV
  • How could Christians and other kinds of religionists justify being ruled by laws and rules, written and unwritten, that go against their faith?From the entry religionist
  • Under the Monroe Doctrine, the United States considered Central and South America within its sphere of influence, therefore justifying American interference with these countries' domestic politics.From the entry sphere of influence
  • Scaringe said this upcoming AI suite will further justify the brand’s decision to control the in-vehicle experience.2025 October 16, EV.com Staff, quoting RJ Scaringe, “Rivian CEO Stands Firm on Skipping Apple CarPlay, Calls It a “Convicted” Decision”…. From the entry convict
  • President Trump did not need to warp intelligence to justify his decision.2025 June 28, Maureen Dowd, “Obfuscating on Obliterating”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry unquenchable
  • The White House argument is simple: that the end justifies the means.2023 July 7, David Smith, “End justifies means for Biden in sending cluster bombs to Ukraine”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry the end justifies the means
  • This is far more evidence than Hamas has provided to justify their claim.2023 October 18, NKinCode, “If Israël had any kind of proof it would be all over the Western world rn.”, in r/Conspiracy. From the entry geoconfirmation
  • So is the argument that all that social good justifies Evan’s manipulative means?2021 September 22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club. From the entry glom onto
  • Massachusetts, might be wielded to justify curbing individual liberties without caveat.2020 April 10, Joan Biskupic, “The 115-year-old Supreme Court opinion that could determine rights during a pandemic”, in CNN, archived…. From the entry Jacobson
  • The risks involved and continued loss of resources and lives makes it hard to justify.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: APEX Status. From the entry foothold
  • Nathan could justify putting a pin in the matter of Jane Hawk until Monday.2017, Dean Koontz, The Silent Corner, page 238. From the entry put a pin in
  • On the surface, the Kuznets curve seems to justify laissez-faire economics and trickle-down policies.2012 April 30, Kentaro Toyama, “The Rise and Fall and Rise (Literally) of the Most Important Curve in Economics”, in The Atlantic. From the entry trickle-down
  • Especially when you have no idea about the context of what bigotry you’re trying to justify.2012 December 22, Bunnika, “For reblogging: No crip has to be nice to ableists”, in Cumulative notes for the Zōon Politikon, retrieved 27…. From the entry -splain
  • However, a single trash pull is rarely sufficient to justify a legally valid search warrant.2012, Christine Hess Orthmann, Kären M. Hess, Criminal Investigation, page 113. From the entry trash pull
  • Lawyers helped, too, with a letter he used to justify his strategy.2011 July 27, Jon Henley, “Rupert Murdoch and the battle of Wapping: 25 years on”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry bend over backwards
  • If this is accepted without protest, then universal breedership justifies the extension of parental obligations to all.2009, Frida Simonstein, Reprogen-Ethics and the Future of Gender, page 144. From the entry breedership
  • Obama’s candidacy as a stalking horse to justify a government clampdown.2008 August 27, Kirk Johnson, Eric Lichtblau, “Officials See No ‘Credible Threat’ to Obama in Racist Rants”, in New York Times. From the entry stalking horse
  • There is no way that Tesco could justify such a massive hike.2008, MM, “Tesco's 185% increase in the price of grapeseed oil”, in uk.legal (Usenet). From the entry Waitrosey
  • Then why, he was asked, did he write a book that seems to justify nonreading?2007 February 24, Alan Riding, “Read It? No, but You Can Skim a Few Pages and Fake It”, in New York Times. From the entry nonreading
  • Does it justify the "plandemic" of plans that have consumed our society over the last year?2006 July 11, Peter Curson, “Beware the pandemic of hysteria”, in The Sydney Morning Herald. From the entry plandemic
  • Superb Roman remains, Georgian architecture and countless museums justify Bath's position as a tourist honeypot.2004 March 13, Bernice Davidson, “England 2004: Bright lights on the water”, in Telegraph.co.uk, retrieved 28 Jun 2008. From the entry honeypot
  • Perhaps there is indeterminacy in the macroworld, but quantum theory cannot justify such a claim.2002, James Franklin Harris, Analytic Philosophy of Religion, →ISBN, page 226. From the entry macroworld
  • As a result, disorder in itself has become a harm that justifies the criminal sanction.2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, Illusion of Order. From the entry appropriate
  • Corporations will now have to justify all their internal pricing decisions up front.1993 March 25, Byron L[eslie] Dorgan, “Opening Statement of Senator Dorgan”, in The Breakdown of IRS Tax Enforcement Regarding…. From the entry potlatch
  • Making matters worse, these courts developed a new theory to justify the protection of factual compilations.1991 March 27, Sandra Day O'Connor writing for the Supreme Court of the United States in Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone…. From the entry sweat of one's brow
  • The printing machine insists on justifying the lines and produces gate-toothed copy of little elegance.1990, Anthony Burgess, You’ve Had Your Time, pages 381-382. From the entry gate-toothed
  • To a homo ludens, playing is an aim in itself and justifies any effort.1989, Yishai Tobin, editor, From Sign to Text: A semiotic view of communication, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 196. From the entry homo ludens
  • The clerical opponents of the Reformation systematically invoked Galfridian prophecy to justify their resistance.1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 380. From the entry Galfridian
  • Thus, she may have prevented some passersby from justifying their own nondonating behavior by downgrading the charity.1970, Jacqueline Macaulay, Leonard Berkowitz, Altruism and helping behavior. From the entry nondonating
  • The unstylized facts will hardly justify anything more than an agnostic conclusion.1970, Robert M. Solow, Growth Theory: An Exposition, Oxford University Press, page 6. From the entry unstylized fact
  • The results obtained by strict enforcement of muzzlings seem to justify its recommendation.1902, Pennsylvania. Dept. of Agriculture, Annual Report, page 529. From the entry muzzling
  • No sooner had Charles left Washington than Trump, predictably, began exploiting their private conversations to justify his Iranian inanities.2026 May 2, Simon Tisdall, “The king went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. He may also have shown the US how to save itself”, in The…. From the entry inanity

Meaning of justify

  1. verb To provide an acceptable explanation for.
  2. verb To be a good reason behind a normally-unacceptable action; to warrant.
  3. verb To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.

Full definition of justify

Questions about justify in a sentence

How do you use justify in a sentence?
Justify is used as a verb. For example: “How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?”
What is a short sentence with justify?
“The text will look better justified.”
What does justify mean?
Justify means to provide an acceptable explanation for.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: justify (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use justify in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/justify. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.