JUSTIFY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Justify

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/dʒˈəstəfˌaɪ/ Listen

Justify

verb

(past & past part. justified; pres. part. justifying)

Show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for. Synonym: warrant. "The end justifies the means"

Show to be right by providing justification or proof. Synonym: vindicate.

Defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning. Synonyms: apologise, apologize, excuse, rationalise, rationalize. "He rationalized his lack of success"

Let off the hook. Synonyms: absolve, free. Antonym: blame.

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"Justify" Quotes from Famous Books

... elastic; the chest is broad and singularly swelling; and the shoulders are placed so far back from the thorax that the breasts project beyond them in a massive arch. It has been asserted that one shoulder is slightly lower than the other. Some of the busts seem to justify this statement; but the appearance is due probably to the different position of the two arms, one of which, if carried out, would be lifted and the other be depressed. The legs and arms are modelled with exquisite grace of outline; yet they do not ...

— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the well-known features of Mr. Hill, the Superintendent, "You must only remember that you have done your duty faithfully and splendidly. Although I should not have approved the course you took at the outset, the results fully justify all that you have done, and I am very proud to number you among the employees of our company. You have certainly graduated with honors from the ranks of brakemen, and have fairly won your promotion to any position that you feel competent to fill. It only ...

— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... pause) If the sentence were just, 50 why was not the execution of it public. . . . It is reported, that they were—but no! I will not believe it—the honest soul of my friend would not justify so foul ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... And the other day, having been led by a Mr. Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to his biography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one, must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on the critic's business, which seems to justify every possible disparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of ...

— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

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