Just
adverbOnly a moment ago, simply, exactly, or barely.
How to spell just
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce just
What does just mean?
- adverbOnly a moment ago, simply, exactly, or barely.
- adjectiveMorally right, fair, or based on what is deserved.
Just in a sentence
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adverb
She had just left the office when the call came through.
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adjective
The workers demanded a just wage for the extra hours.
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adverb
The parcel was just small enough to fit through the letterbox.
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adjective
The judge handed down a just and reasoned verdict.
Where does just come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word arrived in English in the late 1300s from Old French juste, which came directly from the Latin iustus, meaning 'upright', 'lawful', or 'rightful'. That adjective was built on the noun ius, the Latin word for law or legal right, the same root that gives us 'justice', 'judge', and 'jury'. The earliest English uses kept the legal and moral sense of 'fair' and 'acting according to what is right'. From that idea of exactness and precision (a 'just' measure being an exact one) the word slid into adverb territory, first meaning 'exactly' or 'precisely', then weakening into the everyday senses of 'only', 'simply', and 'a moment ago'. Because the spelling is short and entirely phonetic, the trap is not the letters themselves but confusion with 'gist', and with the inflated American spelling habit of doubling nothing here at all.
How the word is built
- just (from Latin iustus: lawful, rightful, from ius: law, right)
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