JUSTIFY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.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.

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"Justify" Quotes from Famous Books

... Bulgaria could perhaps be held in check by Rumanian and Greek forces left along her northern and southern frontiers. The Bucharest Government was accordingly sounded, and returned an answer too evasive to justify reliance on its co-operation. So M. Venizelos fell back on the scheme of buying Bulgarian co-operation by the cession of Cavalla, and submitted a ...

— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... DUCHESS. Pshaw! How could they learn to read the Bible without learning to read Karl Marx? Why do you not stand to your guns and justify what you did, instead of making silly excuses? Do you suppose I think flogging a woman worse than flogging a man? I, ...

— Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • George Bernard Shaw

... nevertheless done; and by the incredible complications of my position I found myself compelled to keep silence. Nothing certainly would have been easier than to repel the calumny by an exact rehearsal of the facts; but should I justify myself in this manner by, so to speak, accusing the Emperor at a moment especially when the Emperor's enemies manifested much bitterness? When I saw such a great man made a mark for the shafts of calumny, ...

— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... a country, the nature of the business upon which an embassador is sent, or the personal character of the embassador, may be such as to justify a government in refusing to receive him. But to preserve the friendly relations of the two countries, satisfactory explanations ought to be made, or good reasons offered ...

— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... know the reasons which were considered sufficient to justify divorce. The language of the early laws would seem to imply that originally it was quite enough to pronounce the words: "Thou art not my wife," "Thou art not my husband." But the loss of the wife's dowry and the penalties attached to divorce must ...

— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

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