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or concealment; an artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument, or to justify opinions or conduct; a shift; an evasion. Affect not little shifts and subterfuges, to avoid the force of an argument. I. Watts. By a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render this position safe by rendering it nugatory. B…

ort 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. I. Watts. Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man. Pope.…

Tending or serving to vindicate or justify; justificatory; vindicative.

That which warrants or authorizes; a commission giving authority, or justifying the doing of anything; an act, instrument, or obligation, by which one person authorizes another to do something which he has not otherwise a right to do; an act or instrument investing one with a right or authority, and thus securing him f…