justify

present singular third person justifies · participle present justifying · participle past justified · past justified · alternative obsolete justifie

1. transitiveTo provide an acceptable explanation for.

   Paying too much for car insurance is not justified.

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   How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?

   What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert th’ Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men.

   1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Like all public expenditure, Access for All has to compete with other deserving demands. 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? How do you decide on a minimum number of annual station users to justify that expenditure?

   2023 August 23, Anthony Lambert, “Expanding the family and disabled markets”, in RAIL, number 990, page 53

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

   Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.

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   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.

   1861, Edward Everett, The Great Issues Now Before the Country, An oration delivered at the New York Academy of Music, July 4, 1861, New York: James G. Gregory, page 8

   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

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

   The text will look better justified.

4. transitiveTo absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin.

   I cannot justify whom the law condemns.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

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   And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 13:39

5. reflexiveTo 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.

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   And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 16:15

   […] I was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my errors […]

   1848, Anne Brontë, “Chapter 13”, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

6. transitiveTo prove; to ratify; to confirm.

   […] say My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench that puts to Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

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   She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been, By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all; When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge She is thy very princess.

   c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

7. lawTo show (a person) to have had a sufficient legal reason for an act that has been made the subject of a charge or accusation.
8. lawTo qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property.

   'J'USTIFYING BAIL, practice, is the production of bail in court, who there justify themselves against the exception of the plaintiff.

   1839, John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union, volume I, Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson, page 557