What's the difference between excuse and justification?

Excuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To free from accusation, or the imputation of fault or blame; to clear from guilt; to release from a charge; to justify by extenuating a fault; to exculpate; to absolve; to acquit.
  • (v. t.) To pardon, as a fault; to forgive entirely, or to admit to be little censurable, and to overlook; as, we excuse irregular conduct, when extraordinary circumstances appear to justify it.
  • (v. t.) To regard with indulgence; to view leniently or to overlook; to pardon.
  • (v. t.) To free from an impending obligation or duty; hence, to disengage; to dispense with; to release by favor; also, to remit by favor; not to exact; as, to excuse a forfeiture.
  • (v. t.) To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
  • (v. t.) The act of excusing, apologizing, exculpating, pardoning, releasing, and the like; acquittal; release; absolution; justification; extenuation.
  • (v. t.) That which is offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or irregular deportment; apology; as, an excuse for neglect of duty; excuses for delay of payment.
  • (v. t.) That which excuses; that which extenuates or justifies a fault.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As he told us: 'Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.'
  • (2) We need to stop making excuses for them: But it is up to the state to close the loopholes Yes, the state must work continually to tighten and simplify the tax regime, which is a deliberate mess keeping an entire industry of accounting firms and tax lawyers fed.
  • (3) "With hindsight," he writes, "it was a trumped-up excuse for radical activism for its own sake."
  • (4) The Frenchman has been excused from duty at Everton on Saturday on compassionate grounds and the club have put no time frame on his possible return.
  • (5) Becton’s lawyer, Hannah Stroud, told a separate news conference that stress was no excuse for Casebolt’s actions and “the manner in which Ms Becton was treated was excessive, inappropriate and without cause” and a civil rights violation.
  • (6) Well, Machado put those skills on display on Sunday, and this is an excuse to bring you his ridiculous play against the Yankees.
  • (7) This prompted an angry response from the bill's sponsors who accused opponents of using border security as an excuse to block any immigration reform.
  • (8) This lovely coastal route also gives you an excuse to hop on the Skye ferry, which plies its way over the narrows to Kylerhea from the start of this walk.
  • (9) I think the French manager told him ‘it’s very difficult to watch you when you’re not playing for PSG’ – he hasn’t got that excuse now.” Palace are also well worth watching.
  • (10) I'm not a believer, and my only problem with artistic licence is when the phrase is used as an excuse to oversimplify a work to improve its marketability.
  • (11) Nothing in this context can be soft-pedalled and excused.
  • (12) He continues: “And a ‘no excuses’ culture where excellence is the norm.” Police were called by a member of the public shortly after 11am after reports of a disturbance outside the school in George V Avenue, where a number of parents and pupils had gathered.
  • (13) The current IRS controversy does not excuse sham political organizations masquerading as social welfare organizations, and shines a light on the critical need for campaign spending disclosure legislation.
  • (14) David Winnick, the MP for Walsall North, said: "None of [May's] excuses can explain away the sheer incompetence and shambles that have occurred on her watch."
  • (15) Sessions are scheduled regularly throughout the year and take place outside the hospital; interns are excused from their service responsibilities for the duration of the meeting.
  • (16) "There is no excuse to cut back on services that patients depend on.
  • (17) His team had been working on a protest-themed game for the past two years, and the frenzy surrounding Occupy Central gave them an excuse to release a prototype.
  • (18) After years of on-and-off e-dating, in which I've met 150-200 women, fallen in love with one and invented extravagant excuses to extricate myself from awkward encounters with countless others, you might think I'd be tired of it all.
  • (19) "We are always followed by a crowd of people – not journalists, but people who are following us and track our every move, and look for any excuse to detain us."
  • (20) The bar on religious weddings was meant to reassure the faithful, but the Church of England has twisted the weird and novel distinction between religious and secular marriages into an excuse to oppose the whole reform , while it is left to Labour's Yvette Cooper to speak for liberal Jews and Quakers who resent the continuing bar on them offering ceremonial equality.

Justification


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of justifying or the state of being justified; a showing or proving to be just or conformable to law, justice, right, or duty; defense; vindication; support; as, arguments in justification of the prisoner's conduct; his disobedience admits justification.
  • (n.) The showing in court of a sufficient lawful reason why a party charged or accused did that for which he is called to answer.
  • (n.) The act of justifying, or the state of being justified, in respect to God's requirements.
  • (n.) Adjustment of type by spacing it so as to make it exactly fill a line, or of a cut so as to hold it in the right place; also, the leads, quads, etc., used for making such adjustment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "We do not yet live in a society where the police or any other officers of the law are entitled to detain people without reasonable justification and demand their papers," Gardiner wrote.
  • (2) Considerations of different ways of obtaining informed consent, determining ways of minimizing harm, and justifications for violating the therapeutic obligation are discussed but found unsatisfactory in many respects.
  • (3) Although Menzies, et al., report that survival rates are higher than previously expected and that in most cases the children's and parents' lives appear not to be excessively burdensome, the Working Group contends that there "continues to be ethical justification for selective treatment" of such newborns.
  • (4) Financial reasons were given as the main justification for leaving government service.
  • (5) What has confused debate about the legal basis for targeted killings is that the UK’s permanent representative at the UN has given an alternative justification, explaining that the attack was justified by the right of collective self-defence of Iraq – a conflict the UK is supporting at the request of the Baghdad government.
  • (6) This seems to be little more than the existing defence of justification under a new name.
  • (7) There is little justification for strikes in general, still less for doctors' strikes, he claims.
  • (8) Scandinavian forensic psychiatrists, lawyers and criminologists have analyzed and discussed the present situation and have found that there is still a need and justification for forensic psychiatry.
  • (9) An important source of failure in markets and justification for government intervention in the health sector of LDCs is imperfect information.
  • (10) Phylogenetic and ontogenetic justifications for this organization are adduced.
  • (11) This paper challenges the present policy on two grounds: consent from adults who donate kidneys is generally not informed, and therefore it is inconsistent to use the consent requirement as a justification for excluding children; and renal donation by adults can be seen as a procedure done for the benefit of the donor (as well as the recipient), and the appropriate rules for using children as donors should therefore be those pertaining to beneficial intrusions on nonconsenting subjects.
  • (12) Up to now, to interpret antibiotic susceptibility tests, the common practice has been to use: first, breakpoints without any quantitative justification, secondly, concordance curves between the different measurement techniques; these are not well adapted to the heterogeneous character of bacterial populations.
  • (13) Things only got worse in 1998 when Russia defaulted on its loans: the people of this area once again lost what little they had saved, and the oligarchs just got richer, in yet more deals that Russians perceived, with some justification, to have been brokered by the west.
  • (14) In these countries, however, a question has risen as to priority and justification for developing neonatal intensive care.
  • (15) In an increasingly digital society, the justification for opacity in trade negotiations has met its demise, and it's time that we see modern legal instruments negotiated in a transparent and inclusive manner in order to get the best outcome for our country.
  • (16) But there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence."
  • (17) Despite uncertainties and differences in interpretation of various cancer studies, there is ample justification for public health measures now in place or proposed, such as restriction or elimination of smoking in the workplace and in public places.
  • (18) The presence of a field change, affecting epidermal melanocytes in the skin surrounding melanomas, has been cited as a justification for performing radical excision of these lesions.
  • (19) The justification for its use is not always as clear as one might hope.
  • (20) 3.06pm BST More scientific reaction Ken Collins, a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton, said there was no justification for using lethal methods for researching whales.