justify

1. (transitive) To provide an acceptable explanation for.Examples: "How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?"; "Paying too much for car insurance is not justified."; "What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert th’ Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men."transitive

2. (transitive) To be a good, acceptable reason for; warrant.Examples: "Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night."; "Unless the oppression is so extreme as to justify revolution, it would not justify the evil of breaking up a government, under an abstract constitutional right to do so."; "Preservation of two railway routes between Belfast and Derry could no longer be justified and one of them must go."transitive

3. (transitive, typography) To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.Examples: "The text will look better justified."transitive

4. (transitive) To absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin.Examples: "I cannot justify whom the law condemns."; "And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."transitive

5. (reflexive) To give reasons for one’s actions; to make an argument to prove that one is in the right.Examples: "She felt no need to justify herself for deciding not to invite him."; "And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."; "[…] I was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my errors […]"reflexive

6. (transitive) To prove; to ratify; to confirm.Examples: "She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been, By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all; When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge She is thy very princess."; "[…] say My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench that puts to Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t."transitive