a. [f. VINDICATE v. + -ORY.]
1. Serving to vindicate; justificatory, defensive.
1647. Royall & Royallist’s Plea, 13. The warre on the Kings side is vindicatory and defensorie.
1755. Johnson, Vindicatory, defensory; justificatory.
1802. Mrs. J. West, Infidel Father, III. 258. No proud aggression of vindicatory virtue would be visible in her manner.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, III. xxiii. A favourable magistracy … were writing urgent vindicatory letters to Rome on his behalf.
1884. 19th Cent., May, 869. The teaching of the parent Legislature does not end with the record of the famous contentions and vindicatory triumphs of the past from which it is derived.
2. Avenging; punitive, retributive.
1655. Bramhall, Def. True Liberty, 83. The afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins,… but probatory chastisements to make triall of his graces.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 56. To make the sanction of their laws rather vindicatory than remuneratory, or to consist rather in punishments, than in actual particular rewards.
1800. Ann. Reg., 153. The laws should be vindicatory on such occasions.
1874. Bushnell, Forgiveness & Law, iii. 188. By the law … we are only held in terms of penal discipline and not of desert or vindicatory justice.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., 1973. Every true philosophy of punishment must recognize the deterrent, and especially the vindicatory element, as well as the reformatory element.
