justify
/ˈd͡ʒʌstɪfaɪ/ verb B2- To provide an acceptable explanation for. · How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?· Paying too much for car insurance is not justified.
- To be a good reason behind a normally-unacceptable action; to warrant. · Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.
- To 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.
- To absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin.
- To 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.
- To prove; to ratify; to confirm.
- To show (a person) to have had a sufficient legal reason for an act that has been made the subject of a charge or accusation.
- To qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the ownership of sufficient property.
He/she/it justifies · Past justified · Past participle justified · -ing form justifying
Verb forms
- Base form
- justify
- He/she/it
- justifies
- Past
- justified
- Past participle
- justified
- -ing form
- justifying
From the library
WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him.
“I really don’t know that I should be justified in discussing such a point.”
Still, he has been justified of his wisdom up to date, at any rate, since he has not been taken.
“Well, gentlemen,” said my friend gravely, “I am asking you now to put everything to the test with me, and you will judge for yourselves whether the observations I have made justify the conclusions to which I have come.
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