poetic justice

noun
/pəʊˌɛtɪk ˈd͡ʒʌstɪs/UK/poʊˌɛtɪk ˈd͡ʒʌstɪs/US

Etymology

From poetic + justice, a variant of poetical justice, coined by the English literary critic Thomas Rymer (c. 1643 – 1713) in the work The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider’d and Examin’d (1678): see the quotation.

  1. derived from *h₂yew-
  2. derived from *jowos
  3. derived from iūstitia — “righteousness, equity
  4. derived from justise
  5. inherited from justice
  6. compounded as poetic justice — “poetic + justice

Definitions

  1. Synonym of poetical justice (“the idea that in a literary work such as a poem, virtue…

    Synonym of poetical justice (“the idea that in a literary work such as a poem, virtue should be rewarded and vice punished”).

    • Poetic Juſtice, vvith her lifted ſcale; / VVhere in nice balance, truth vvith gold ſhe vveighs, / And ſolid pudding againſt empty praiſe.
  2. The fact of someone experiencing what they deserve for their actions, especially when…

    The fact of someone experiencing what they deserve for their actions, especially when this happens in an ironic manner.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for poetic justice. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA