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Definition of "poetic justice" [poetic justice]

  • The rewarding of virtue and the punishment of vice, often in an especially appropriate or ironic manner. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "poetic justice" in a sentence
  • "I suppose there was some poetic justice in the AVO’s founder occupying the cell next door to my father’s, a victim of Rakosi’s need for purges in the brief post-Stalinist “thaw.”"
  • "Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must not be held lightly."