as in explanations
a statement given to explain a belief or act
the rationale for starting the school day an hour later is that kids will supposedly get an extra hour of sleep
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Recent Examples of rationales
The president has offered several rationales for the war in Iran, chief among them dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program.
—
Lauren Green,
The Washington Examiner,
19 June 2026
Cicero has been my nemesis in this book, for unconscionably grasping for elder power and offering up rationales for doing so repeated over the centuries.
—
Literary Hub,
18 June 2026
Transparency mechanisms such as feature attribution logging and traceable alert rationales are becoming standard components in pharmacy AI platforms.
—
Ethan Stone
june 3,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
3 June 2026
Writers such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson published eloquent ecological and scientific rationales for wilderness preservation, wildlife management, and pollution control, laying the intellectual groundwork for the late 1960s and early ’70s boom in environmental legislation.
—
John Reid,
The Atlantic,
14 May 2026
The lawsuit also includes a lot of lengthy rationales that this is cultural appropriation of an Indigenous person that has nothing to do with the legality of Right of Publicity.
—
Brian Welk,
IndieWire,
8 May 2026
Freed from all the entanglements that come with having to launch a ground invasion, air war can overfly not just morality and law but arguments, rationales, the calibration of risks to rewards and of suffering to satisfaction.
—
Fintan O’Toole,
The New York Review of Books,
9 Apr. 2026
Investors look for reasons to take profits, even though the rationales may have nothing to do with the market action.
—
Michael Hiltzik,
Boston Herald,
3 Apr. 2026
Instead, the White House offered frequently shifting rationales for its war and little outreach to the Iranian resistance.
—
Benjamin Wallace-Wells,
New Yorker,
3 Apr. 2026
Lauren Green,
The Washington Examiner,
19 June 2026
Cicero has been my nemesis in this book, for unconscionably grasping for elder power and offering up rationales for doing so repeated over the centuries.
—
Literary Hub,
18 June 2026
Transparency mechanisms such as feature attribution logging and traceable alert rationales are becoming standard components in pharmacy AI platforms.
—
Ethan Stone
june 3,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
3 June 2026
Writers such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson published eloquent ecological and scientific rationales for wilderness preservation, wildlife management, and pollution control, laying the intellectual groundwork for the late 1960s and early ’70s boom in environmental legislation.
—
John Reid,
The Atlantic,
14 May 2026
The lawsuit also includes a lot of lengthy rationales that this is cultural appropriation of an Indigenous person that has nothing to do with the legality of Right of Publicity.
—
Brian Welk,
IndieWire,
8 May 2026
Freed from all the entanglements that come with having to launch a ground invasion, air war can overfly not just morality and law but arguments, rationales, the calibration of risks to rewards and of suffering to satisfaction.
—
Fintan O’Toole,
The New York Review of Books,
9 Apr. 2026
Investors look for reasons to take profits, even though the rationales may have nothing to do with the market action.
—
Michael Hiltzik,
Boston Herald,
3 Apr. 2026
Instead, the White House offered frequently shifting rationales for its war and little outreach to the Iranian resistance.
—
Benjamin Wallace-Wells,
New Yorker,
3 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rationales
Noun
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Without literal explanations, readers must pay close attention to Smith’s artwork in each panel to follow Weapon X’s story.
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The repo man’s job is not to accept the handoff of a phone, or to engage explanations.
Noun
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Whatever the reasons, the result is somewhat ironic.
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Another possibility is that AMD made the move for performance reasons.
Noun
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Attorneys posed dueling accounts of Payton and Martin’s roles in the deadly 2022 K Street shootings as closing arguments resumed Wednesday in the pair’s murder trial in Sacramento Superior Court.
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Even during the high court arguments in April, advocates for children worried that these impacts were being overlooked.
Cite this Entry
“Rationales.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rationales. Accessed 25 Jun. 2026.
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