justify
Formsjustifies, justifying, justified
- 1To provide an acceptable explanation for an action, decision, or belief.
The manager was asked to justify the sudden budget cuts to the board.
Critics demanded that the agency justify its decision to close the clinic.
Similarexplain, defend, rationalize
Note
The everyday sense keeps its Latin recipe in view: Late Latin justificare, from justus "just" and facere "make". To justify something is, at root, to make it come out just. Milton's aim in Paradise Lost (1667), to "justifie the wayes of God to men", is still the line people quote. The usual setting is a challenge, how can you justify spending…?, with a gerund or noun as the object.
- 2To be a good or acceptable reason for something; to warrant it.
The promising early results justify further investment in the research.
Nothing could justify such a harsh punishment.
Note
Here the subject is the reason itself, not the person arguing: results, oppression, circumstances. Compare the explaining sense, where someone does the justifying. Because the reason does the work, this sense sits comfortably in the negative and the passive, as in nothing can justify it or it could no longer be justified. Warrant can usually replace it without loss.
- 3To give reasons for one's actions in order to prove that one was in the right.
She refused to justify herself to people who had already judged her.
Whenever questioned, he would justify his every move, insisting he had done nothing wrong.
Note
A reflexive use: you justify yourself, usually to or before an audience whose judgment matters. The King James Bible of 1611 has "ye are they which justify yourselves before men". Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) pairs being "unable to justify myself" with being unwilling to admit error. A for-phrase names the act being defended, as in justify herself for deciding not to invite him.
- 4To arrange text so that the left and right edges of every line in a paragraph are aligned.
The designer justified the columns to give the brochure a clean, blocky look.
Word processors let you justify a paragraph with a single click.
Similaralign
Note
Typesetters justify a line by adjusting the spacing between its words and characters until both margins run flush, so that the paragraph forms an even rectangular block. The past participle often works as a plain description of the result, as in a justified column or text that will look better justified.
- 5To absolve someone and declare them free of blame or sin.
The reformers argued that faith alone could justify a sinner before God.
Only divine grace justifies the repentant soul.
Similarabsolve, acquit, exonerate
Oppositecondemn
Note
Theology takes the Latin "make just" behind the everyday sense most literally: a justified sinner is declared righteous, not merely explained. The King James Bible of 1611 pairs it with from, as in "justified from all things". Shakespeare's Henry VI sets it against the law: "I cannot justify whom the law condemns." The object is always a person, never an act.
- 6To prove something to be true; to confirm or ratify it.
The investigation justified every claim the whistleblower had made.
Time would justify her predictions about the market.
Similarconfirm, vindicate, substantiate, validate
Note
Shakespeare's justify proves a claim true. It does not excuse anything. In The Winter's Tale, "say't and justify't" dares a speaker to back an accusation with proof. Elsewhere a kneeling listener is to "justify in knowledge" who a woman truly is. Reading it as confirm keeps the modern idea of making excuses out of these lines.
- 7To show that a person had a sufficient legal reason for an act of which they are accused.
The defense sought to justify the accused on grounds of self-defense.
The court found facts that justified the constable in making the arrest.
Similarexonerate, vindicate, excuse
Note
Legal justification is a complete defense, not a mere excuse. It shows that the accused had lawful grounds for the very act charged. The usual construction is justify someone in doing something, as in the constable was justified in making the arrest. Compare justifying oneself, which is only argument: the legal sense ends in a finding.
- 8In law, to swear on oath that one owns enough property to qualify as a surety.
The two men came forward to justify as sureties for the prisoner's release.
He justified by taking an oath that his land was worth twice the bond.
Note
Bail procedure gives the verb an unusual subject: the surety justifies by swearing to own property enough to answer the bond. John Bouvier's A Law Dictionary (1839) describes bail produced in court who "justify themselves against the exception of the plaintiff", so the oath answers a challenge to their sufficiency. The verb can stand alone (he justified) or take a reflexive.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English justifien, borrowed from Old French justifier, from Late Latin justificare meaning "make just": a combination of Latin justus ("just") and ficare ("make," from facere).