Word of the Day:
justify
What It Means
To provide an acceptable explanation for.
To be a good reason behind a normally-unacceptable action; to warrant.
To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.
She felt no need to justify herself for deciding not to invite him.
Justify in Context
“Unless the oppression is so extreme as to justify revolution, it would not justify the evil of breaking up a government, under an abstract constitutional right to do so.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English justifien, from Old French justifier, from Late Latin justificare (“make just”), from Latin justus, iustus (“just”) + ficare (“make”), from facere, equivalent to just + -ify.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: justify (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “justify.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/justify. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
