Justifying

How to spell justifying

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce justifying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does justifying mean?

1. verbShowing an action, decision, or belief to be reasonable or warranted.
2. verbAdjusting spacing in text so that the lines align evenly with the margins.

Justifying in a sentence

• The manager spent the meeting justifying the rise in costs.

• The designer was justifying the columns so both edges line up.

• She had a hard time justifying the expense to her partner.

• Justifying the paragraphs left a few awkward gaps between words.

Where does justifying come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of 'justify', which English took from the Old French justifier in the 1300s. That French verb descended from the Late Latin justificare, a compound of justus, meaning 'right', 'lawful', or 'righteous', and facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to do'; so the literal sense was 'to make right' or 'to show to be just'. The same justus sits inside familiar relatives such as 'just', 'justice', and 'adjust', all carrying that idea of fairness or correctness. Early religious writers used it to mean declaring a person free from guilt, and only later did the broader sense of 'giving good reasons for something' settle in. The printing trade then borrowed it for spacing text so that lines run evenly to the margin, a kind of 'making the page right'. The spelling trap is the -ify ending, since the silent original 'e' of 'justify' is dropped before -ing.

How the word is built

• just- (from Latin justus: right, lawful)
• -ify (to make)
• -ing (present participle)