justify
To provide an acceptable explanation for.
Example
“How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?”
Other meanings
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.”
Related words
- justifyingly
- dexify
- overjustify
- rejustify
- unjustify
- justifying space
- self-justify
- the ends justify the means
Example sentences
Word history
From Latin "justus".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “justify” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.