justification.

1. A reason or body of reasons offered to support an action, judgment or belief.

2. The arrangement of text so that its lines align with a specified margin or both margins.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• evidential justification
• justification for a decision

On the page

The report supplied a justification for the selection rule rather than simply describing how it was applied.

A later success could not replace the justification missing when the decision was made.

Usage notes

Primary category: analysis / argumentation / evidence. Forms: Uncountable for the provision or state of supporting grounds; countable justification, plural justifications, for individual reasons or accounts. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: evidence, argumentation, evaluation, qualification. Disciplines: reasoning, research, essay writing. Commonness: moderately common.