rationale

noun ra·tio·nale \ ˌra-shə-ˈnal \

|Updated on: 21 Jun 2018

Examples: rationale in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

1 : an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena

2 : an underlying reason : basis

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Examples of rationale in a Sentence

the rationale for starting the school day an hour later is that kids will supposedly get an extra hour of sleep

Recent Examples of rationale from the Web

Many attended a news conference this past week at Le Mesturet to explain the rationale.

— claire mufson, New York Times, "Paris Bistros Became Symbols of Resilience. But Are They Unesco Worthy?," 16 June 2018
Many attended a news conference this past week at Le Mesturet to explain the rationale.

— claire mufson, BostonGlobe.com, "Bistros are the life of Paris, but are they UNESCO worthy?," 16 June 2018
The Pentagon’s rationale for putting low-yield warheads on submarines rests on the belief that Russian nuclear doctrine has evolved to include the possibility of a battlefield nuclear attack.

— paul sonne, Washington Post, "Trump poised to get new low-yield nuclear weapons," 13 June 2018
Ramatowski, who oversees visa services for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, did provide the panel with some insight into the department’s rationale for the shorter visas.

— jeffrey mervis, Science | AAAS, "More restrictive U.S. policy on Chinese graduate student visas raises alarm," 11 June 2018
Ending the Korean War gnaws away at the rationale for the U.S. to keep its troops in South Korea and Japan, as ostensibly there would not be any local threat any longer.

— suyin haynes, Time, "Six Things We Learned About the Trump-Kim Summit From the Reddit AMA with TIME's Charlie Campbell," 7 June 2018
The move appalled friendly governments because it was justified by the rationale that their trade policies presented a national security threat to the US.

— stephen collinson, CNN, "Trump flips US foreign policy upside down," 7 June 2018
When denied raises, the most common rationale from employers deal with budgetary constraints.

— fiza pirani, ajc, "Want a raise? Be a white man — Report finds people of color less likely to receive pay increase," 7 June 2018
Removing the tools needed to complete the AFH seems to contradict this rationale though.

— jeff andrews, Curbed, "HUD withdraws anti-segregation tool, gets sued again," 31 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'rationale.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

The word rationale appeared in the second half of the 17th century, just in time for the Age of Reason. It is based on the Latin ratio, which means "reason," and rationalis, which means "endowed with reason." At first, rationale meant "an explanation of controlling principles" ("a rationale of religious practices," for example), but soon it began to refer to the underlying reason for something (as in "the rationale for her behavior"). The latter meaning is now the most common use of the term. The English word ratio can also mean "underlying reason" (in fact, it had this meaning before rationale did), but in current use, that word more often refers to the relationship (in number, quantity, or degree) between things.