The Brown Lady | Volume 9

The Evolution of the Word Justice Kayla Gates

The word “justice” has been a highly powerful and prevalent word for several centuries. Although this powerful word has kept roughly the same meaning for an extensive time in history, and it has kept its same denotation, it has grown into a drastically impactful word in modern times due to major historical events and several misfortunes in the African American community, Hispanic community, and others. Through the years, the magnitude and enforcement of justice has been questioned and demanded from many cultures and communities, which brings many people back to the simple meaning and origin of the word “justice.”

The etymology of the word “justice” is derived from the Anglo-Norman and Old French civilizations.

Originally, the word was written justis, jostise, justiz, or justyse. Many words that originated from the Anglo-Norman and Central French were introduced due to the Norman Conquest in the year 1066, which completely changed the whole course of the English language. Due to the invasion of England by the Normans, the Normans eventually lost their Scandinavian tongue, and French became the essential language in the civilization and eventually became the Norman French language (Baugh, Cable 104-105).

Because of the Norman conquest, words like “justice” became alive.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “justice” means the “administration of law or equity” with several secondary meanings. Some of these meanings include “maintenance of what is just or right by the exercise of authority or power; assignment of deserved reward or punishment,” “punishment of an offender or retribution deemed appropriate for a crime,” “a place of execution, a gallows,” and “the administration of law” (OED). Each denotation of the word “justice” is fairly similar, and it has been used substantially beginning in the year 1160 and even more in modern society, especially from the 1950s to the present day.

Although the word has been alive for several centuries, in the past decade, the word “justice” has become more prevalent in modern society. According to the Google Ngram Viewer, which is the online search engine that records words and phrases and how often they were used in a specific time period, justice has always been commonly used, but its use continues to increase yearly. On the Google Ngram Viewer, which only reaches back to the 1500s, there is a constant but gradual increase and decrease of the word; its usage often fluctuates through time. In the beginning of the 1500s, “justice” was used very seldom, but it shifted intensively until the year 1566. In that year, the usage of this word dramatically increased, and it is speculated that this was due to a surge of witch-hunts that took place in modern Europe and colonial America. The fear of witchcraft practices by women began in the mid-1400s, but the height of hysteria and skepticism reached its peak in the 1500s and eventually ended in the 1700s. The witch-hunts and witch trials led to 35,000 to 100,000 executions, and many were only executed for minor and petty reasons or because they simply appeared skeptical, but many were not even witches (“Early History of Punishment and the Development of Prisons in the United States”). The method by which many potential witches were executed was by being burned at the stake. It was believed that this form of execution would purify their soul and rid the person of the evil spirits that they were communicating with. Since this was forbidden during this time period, executing the potential witches was considered just in their eyes.

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