justify

How to use justify in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for justify.

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Editorial note

It's onerous to require someone to justify their right to look at porn.

Examples16

Definitions5

Parts of speech1

Quick take

show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for; "The emergency does not warrant all of us buying guns"; "The end justifies the means"

Meaning at a glance

The clearest senses and uses of justify gathered in one view.

verb

show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for; "The emergency does not warrant all of us buying guns"; "The end justifies the means"

verb

show to be right by providing justification or proof; "vindicate a claim"

verb

defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning; "rationalize the child's seemingly crazy behavior"; "he rationalized his lack of success"

Definitions

Core meanings and parts of speech for justify.

verb

show to be reasonable or provide adequate ground for; "The emergency does not warrant all of us buying guns"; "The end justifies the means"

verb

show to be right by providing justification or proof; "vindicate a claim"

verb

defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning; "rationalize the child's seemingly crazy behavior"; "he rationalized his lack of success"

verb

let off the hook; "I absolve you from this responsibility"

verb

adjust the spaces between words; "justify the margins"

Example sentences

It's onerous to require someone to justify their right to look at porn.

The continuing attempt at justifying the attitude is a bad, bad sign.

The more 'kinds of science we use to justify the initial expenditure, the better.

Can you justify eating a cheap, greasy cheeseburger?

" $4 for overnight shipping is a bargain compared to wasted time, gas, etc. Stores are harder and harder to justify.

People are willing to put up with all sorts of abuse in order to keep their family afloat, but that doesn't justify anything.

Considering the costs of pushing you out, you'd have to be doing a hell of a lot more than just writing shit code to justify termination.

Capital punishment is inane, unjust, and difficult to justify in a message board thread?

Those guys have families and their negligible equity certainly doesn't justify 80-hour weeks.

Because once you put things on a different footing and you require people to justify their freedoms then it becomes ever more difficult to justify anything.

Something I thought slightly peculiar given that he was supposed to be investing his own, significant funds along with B. Plus, I don't believe that he actually did any measurable work during the time period that would justify it based on what I knew at the time.

Your projects are, structurally, not going to leave you with any impressive accomplishments which you could take to other potential clients to justify your newer, higher rates.

Therefore, it sought to justify its ability to do so under the doctrine of so-called 'ancillary jurisdiction,' meaning that it had an implied power to do so in aid of its expressly granted powers.

We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist.

That's as nonsensical as a large corporation justifying their political donations as an innocent, democratic expression of political preference.

"Speaking of special privileges, the extraordinary differential between the 15% tax rate that capitalists pay on carried interest, dividends, and capital gains, and the 35% top marginal rate on work that ordinary Americans pay, is kind of hard to justify without a touch of deification.