Injustice

How to spell injustice

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce injustice

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does injustice mean?

1. nounA lack of fairness; an unfair act or situation, especially one that violates someone's rights.

Injustice in a sentence

• The wrongful conviction was a clear injustice that took years to overturn.

• Campaigners marched to protest the injustice of unequal pay.

Where does injustice come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin iniustitia, meaning 'unfairness' or 'wrongdoing', which was built from in-, a prefix meaning 'not', and iustitia, 'justice' or 'righteousness'. That noun in turn rests on iustus, meaning 'lawful' or 'fair', which came from ius, the Latin word for 'law' or 'right'. English took the word in through Old French as injustice during the 1300s, keeping both the negative prefix and the sense of a violation of what is fair. The shared root ius still hides inside everyday words such as just, justify, and judge. The spelling trap is simply that the second syllable holds an unstressed soft sound that gives no clue whether to write -stice; remembering the word justice with in- in front keeps it steady.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• just (right, lawful, from Latin justus)
• -ice (noun-forming suffix from -itia)