Word.ws English Dictionary

the ends justify the means

the ends justify the means is the alternative form of the end justifies the means.

Meaning of the end justifies the means

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

Questions about the ends justify the means

What is the ends justify the means the alternative form of?
The ends justify the means is the alternative form of the end justifies the means.

Words near the ends justify the means in the dictionary

  1. The Emergency
  2. The Enchantments
  3. the end
  4. the end justifies the means
  5. the end of one's rope
  6. the ends justify the means
  7. the enemy of my enemy is my friend
  8. the enemy of your enemy is your friend
  9. The Entrance
  10. The Entrance North
  11. the eyes are the window to the soul

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the ends justify the means (page history and authors); 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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