# poetic justice

> English word · Noun · IPA /pəʊˌɛtɪk ˈd͡ʒʌstɪs/

## Definitions
1. Synonym of poetical justice (“the idea that in a literary work such as a poem, virtue should be rewarded and vice punished”).
2. The fact of someone experiencing what they deserve for their actions, especially when this happens in an ironic manner.

## 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.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/poetic-justice