Word.ws English Dictionary

the end justifies the means

the end justifies the means proverb: morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes; actions can be considered morally right or wrong only by virtue of the morality of the outcome.

Proverb

the end justifies the means

  1. Morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes; actions can be considered morally right or wrong only by virtue of the morality of the outcome.
    • Marxists were often criticized for believing that the ends justified the means, yet these old Cold Warriors were now the ones using ends to justify means—attacking science in the name of freedom.2010, Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, chapter 5, in Merchants of Doubt
    • Shepard: You honestly think the experiments you did here are justified?
      Maelon: We committed cultural genocide! Nothing I do will ever be justified!
      Maelon: The experiments are monstrous... because I was taught to be a monster.
      Shepard: Mordin, did you ever perform experiments like this?
      Mordin...2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tuchanka

the end justifies the means meaning in Arabic, Malay, Indonesian and Persian

the end justifies the means in Arabic

morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary
الْغَايَةُ تُبَرِّرُ الْوَسِيلَةَ al-ḡāyatu tubarriru l-wasīlata

the end justifies the means in Malay

morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary
matlamat menghalalkan cara

the end justifies the means in Indonesian

morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary
tujuan menghalalkan cara

the end justifies the means in Persian

morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary
هدف وسیله را توجیه میکند
More languagesFewer languages
the end justifies the means in Vietnamese
cứu cánh biện minh cho phương tiện

Forms of the end justifies the means

alternative formthe ends justify the means

Origin of the end justifies the means

Falsely attributed to Machiavelli's The Prince, which does not use the phrase in the work. A possible source is Ovid's Heroides (ca. 10 BCE), which says exitus ācta probat (“the outcome justifies the deeds”). However, its use there is quite likely to have an opposite meaning of outcome proving means were unjustified, based on its context.

Questions about the end justifies the means

What does the end justifies the means mean?
The end justifies the means means morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes; actions can be considered morally right or wrong only by virtue of the morality of the outcome.
What is the end justifies the means in Arabic?
The end justifies the means in Arabic is الْغَايَةُ تُبَرِّرُ الْوَسِيلَةَ (al-ḡāyatu tubarriru l-wasīlata). See The end justifies the means meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is the end justifies the means?
The end justifies the means is a proverb.

Words near the end justifies the means in the dictionary

  1. the early bird gets the worm
  2. the Earth kept spinning
  3. The Emergency
  4. The Enchantments
  5. the end
  6. the end justifies the means
  7. the end of one's rope
  8. the ends justify the means
  9. the enemy of my enemy is my friend
  10. the enemy of your enemy is your friend
  11. The Entrance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the end justifies the means (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-the end justifies the means.wav.

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