justified

American  

[juhs-tuh-fahyd] / ˈdʒʌs təˌfaɪd /

adjective

1. having been shown to be just or right.

   If a parent sides with one child over another, one will feel righteous and justified, and the other will feel misunderstood and resentful.

2. warranted or well-grounded.

   The commission’s stance is that bans on GMO crops must be scientifically justified and crop-specific.

   I accept that there may be a penalty for justified civil disobedience, but I must weigh that penalty against the good that can be accomplished.

3. Printing. aligned with one or, especially, both margins.

   Justified text looks a little neater, but there's nothing particularly wrong with having a ragged right edge.

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noun

1. Theology. Usually the justified a person or persons believed to be worthy, redeemed, or absolved.

   Good works are logically and morally necessary, for they are nothing more or less than the evidence that one is indeed among the justified.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of justify.

Other Word Forms

• half-justified
  adjective
• unjustified
  adjective
• well-justified
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of justified

justify ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Explanation

In typesetting, the term justified refers to how words line up with the margins of a page or column. Whether you choose to make the text left, right, or fully justified depends on the purpose of the text. If you're typing a letter, you may want the date and your address to be right justified. The last character on each line would touch the right margin. The salutation (the part that says, "Dear Sir or Madam") would be left justified, with the D touching the left margin. The body of the letter could be left justified, with the right margin uneven, or fully justified, with both the right and left aligned.

Example Sentences

Perfect isn’t good enough, and any sign of weakness is a disaster: Justified or not, that’s the current mood in the markets about the AI boom.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 12, 2025

Lizzie, who bought The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, says it is "very moving" for her book to have an inscription.

From BBC • Jul. 21, 2025

I think of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ “Against Nature,” Russell Greenan’s “It Happened in Boston?” and James Hogg’s “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” not to mention the work of Kafka himself.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 14, 2023

Justified on the grounds that disclosure rules suffice to ferret out corruption.

From Slate • Apr. 14, 2023

Justified or not, it was her act in leaving him, that had turned those feelings loose upon him.

From The Real Adventure by Crosby, Raymond Moreau

Related Words

• constitutional
• contractual
• fair
• juridical
• lawful
• legitimate
• proper
• statutory
• valid