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

“The Church cannot remain silent when violence is justified in the name of security or when religious language is used to legitimize it,” saying that the church must “defend moral clarity.”

From Salon • Apr. 14, 2026

The case they argued, which the administration accepted, is that unofficial flags can be permissible on certain sites -- as long as their display is justified by a historical context.

From Barron's • Apr. 13, 2026

They said that 16% growth represents a level “rarely expected at the start of any earnings season,” but justified by a favorable macro environment, rising cyclical growth drivers and a weak dollar tailwind.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 9, 2026

The minutes said two officials had pushed back their assessment of when they thought those cuts would be justified given the absence of progress on inflation recently.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026

It would however be simply wrong to think that we and Aristotle share the same views about what constitutes a justified true belief, and about how to acquire such beliefs.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

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