VINDICATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does vindication mean? 

• VINDICATION (noun)
  The noun VINDICATION has 2 senses:

1. the act of vindicating or defending against criticism or censure etc.

2. the justification for some act or belief

  Familiarity information: VINDICATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VINDICATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of vindicating or defending against criticism or censure etc.

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

exoneration; vindication

Context example:

friends provided a vindication of his position

Hypernyms ("vindication" is a kind of...):

clearing (the act of freeing from suspicion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "vindication"):

justification (the act of defending or explaining or making excuses for by reasoning)

rehabilitation (vindication of a person's character and the re-establishment of that person's reputation)

Derivation:

vindicate (maintain, uphold, or defend)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The justification for some act or belief

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

defence; defense; vindication

Context example:

he offered a persuasive defense of the theory

Hypernyms ("vindication" is a kind of...):

justification (a statement in explanation of some action or belief)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "vindication"):

apologia; apology (a formal written defense of something you believe in strongly)

alibi ((law) a defense by an accused person purporting to show that he or she could not have committed the crime in question)

alibi; exculpation; excuse; self-justification (a defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise etc.)

Derivation:

vindicate (show to be right by providing justification or proof)

vindicate (maintain, uphold, or defend)

 Context examples 

But whether her brother had still exceeded her in resentment, Catherine, though she instinctively addressed herself as much to one as to the other in her vindication, had no means of knowing.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication and desiring to be at peace with my conscience.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The existence of anything is sufficient vindication of its fitness to exist—to exist, mark you, as the average person unconsciously believes, not merely in present conditions, but in all conditions.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Dashwood did not hear unmoved the vindication of her former favourite.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Yet thus much I may be allowed to say in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favourable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But this vindication did not satisfy.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Willoughby, poor Willoughby, as she now allowed herself to call him, was constantly in her thoughts; she would not but have heard his vindication for the world, and now blamed, now acquitted herself for having judged him so harshly before.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“I have worked, I do work,” I cried impetuously, as though he were my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)