VINDICATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does vindicate mean? 

• VINDICATE (verb)
  The verb VINDICATE has 3 senses:

1. show to be right by providing justification or proof

2. maintain, uphold, or defend

3. clear of accusation, blame, suspicion, or doubt with supporting proof

  Familiarity information: VINDICATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VINDICATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they vindicate    ... he / she / it vindicates   
Past simple: vindicated   
Past participle: vindicated   
-ing form: vindicating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Show to be right by providing justification or proof

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

justify; vindicate

Context example:

vindicate a claim

Hypernyms (to "vindicate" is one way to...):

maintain; uphold (support against an opponent)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "vindicate"):

excuse; explain (serve as a reason or cause or justification of)

legitimate (show or affirm to be just and legitimate)

warrant (provide adequate grounds to justify (a certain course of action))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

vindication (the justification for some act or belief)

vindicator (a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution)

vindicatory (providing justification)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Maintain, uphold, or defend

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

vindicate the rights of the citizens

Hypernyms (to "vindicate" is one way to...):

defend; maintain (state or assert)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

vindication (the act of vindicating or defending against criticism or censure etc.)

vindication (the justification for some act or belief)

vindicator (a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Clear of accusation, blame, suspicion, or doubt with supporting proof

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

You must vindicate yourself and fight this libel

Hypernyms (to "vindicate" is one way to...):

acquit; assoil; clear; discharge; exculpate; exonerate (pronounce not guilty of criminal charges)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

 Context examples 

Denied the expression of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures and there vindicated the life that was in him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

But I knew, and his genius and my judgment were vindicated when he made that magnificent hit with his ‘Forge.’

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And thereupon he would get out one or another of his manuscripts, such as "Adventure," and read it over and over in a vain attempt to vindicate the editorial silence.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

They vindicated him against the base aspersion.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who was an innocent sufferer upon my account.

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

He was anxious, while vindicating himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

One who defends, vindicates, or espouses a cause, by argument.

(Advocate, NCI Thesaurus)

Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and are related for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the weak and helpless rôle I was destined to play.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He quickly came to know much of the ways of the man-animals, but familiarity did not breed contempt. The more he came to know them, the more they vindicated their superiority, the more they displayed their mysterious powers, the greater loomed their god-likeness.

(White Fang, by Jack London)