VINDICATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Vindicate

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/vˈɪndəkeɪt/ Listen

verb

Vindicate v. t. (past & past part. vindicated; pres. part. vindicating)

1.

To lay claim to; to assert a right to; to claim. (R.) "Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain."

2.

To maintain or defend with success; to prove to be valid; to assert convincingly; to sustain against assault; as, to vindicate a right, claim, or title.

3.

To support or maintain as true or correct, against denial, censure, or objections; to defend; to justify. "When the respondent denies any proposition, the opponent must directly vindicate... that proposition." "Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man."

4.

To maintain, as a law or a cause, by overthrowing enemies.

5.

To liberate; to set free; to deliver. (Obs.) "I am confident he deserves much more That vindicates his country from a tyrant Than he that saves a citizen."

6.

To avenge; to punish; as, a war to vindicate or punish infidelity. (Obs.) "God is more powerful to exact subjection and to vindicate rebellion."

Synonyms: To assert; maintain; claim. See Assert.

See images of 'Vindicate'

Etymology of 'Vindicate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Vindicate" Quotes from Famous Books

... rugged character and marked determination. Save for a slight contraction of the brow, he gave no evidence of the mental concentration he bestowed upon the matter in hand, which was to lead to the culmination of the struggle and to vindicate the wisdom and boldness ...

— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... besieged with petitions for military protection at a hundred points, and all the elements of a dangerous explosion were gathered together. At this critical time Charles Napier was offered the command of the troops in the northern district, and amply did he vindicate the choice. By the most careful preparation beforehand, by the most consummate coolness in the moment of danger, he rode the storm. He saw the danger of billeting small detachments of troops in isolated positions; ...

— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... pass unpunished, but because I had an opportunity of perceiving its ugliness very early in life. When only seven or eight years old I heard a boy—I still remember his name—tell his mother a shameless lie about some prank in which I had shared. I did not interrupt him to vindicate the truth, but I shrank in horror with the feeling of having ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... enemies worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was perverted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly misery, and the last restraint on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and toleration, the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free government. This is not the place for a ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... girl was old enough to take care of herself. Carry did not put her own case so brutally, but she allowed it to be thus put for her by her latest bosom friend, Mrs. Jack Stepney: Mrs. Stepney, trembling over the narrowness of her only brother's escape, but eager to vindicate Mrs. Fisher, at whose house she could count on the "jolly parties" which had become a necessity to her since marriage had emancipated her from the Van Osburgh point ...

— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com