Other forms: injustices
An injustice is treatment that is plainly unfair — someone punished for what they did not do, or paid less for the same work. Ten years in a cell, and then the case is reopened and the man walks out into the street.
It works two ways. Countable: a terrible injustice was done to her, the injustices of the old system. Uncountable: fighting injustice, where it is the whole idea of unfairness rather than one act. The phrase to know is 'do someone an injustice' — to judge them more harshly than they deserve: 'I did him an injustice; he had been trying all along.' Unfairness is the everyday word, while injustice is heavier and belongs to courts, history and politics: racial injustice, social injustice, a miscarriage of justice. Bad luck is not injustice; somebody has to be treating somebody else wrongly.
1nouninjusticeAn unfair act, or unfair treatment of someone.
“The report lists a dozen injustices going back thirty years.”
2nounlackLack of justice; unfairness as a condition.
“She spent her life arguing against injustice in the courts.”
injustice is an unfair act.
Injustice is justice with a 'not' fixed on the front: Latin iniustitia, in- plus justice, which reached English through Old French. It pushed aside the native Old English word unrihtwīsnes — un-right-wise-ness, unfairness built out of plain English parts.
Latin
iniustitia
Old French
injustice
Middle English
injustice
English, today
injustice
From Middle English injustice, from Old French injustice, from Latin iniustitia. Equivalent to in- + justice. Displaced native unrihtwīsnes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA