as in explaining
to give the reason for or cause of
rationalized his decision to buy the new car by noting that it was more fuel efficient than his old vehicle
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Recent Examples of rationalizing
This time, rationalizing the medical results was impossible.
—
Megan Feringa, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2025
Boards under pressure for growth routinely make the wrong choice—rationalizing the damage as a problem for their successors.
—Andrew King, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2025
To find the best, most up-to-date information, that validation typically involves toggling between PubMed, society guidelines, journal notifications and conference summaries, and then rationalizing information that doesn’t always align.
—Anna Forsythe, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
Headed one direction This line of thinking leads in one direction — rationalizing extreme measures in response.
—David French, Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2025
With this setup, and with two stars who have done well playing characters on their respective Houses with a great capacity for rationalizing their cruelty to others, The Girlfriend could easily get away with going back and forth on the blame game for most of its six-hour length.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 8 Sep. 2025
Megan Feringa, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2025
Boards under pressure for growth routinely make the wrong choice—rationalizing the damage as a problem for their successors.
—Andrew King, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2025
To find the best, most up-to-date information, that validation typically involves toggling between PubMed, society guidelines, journal notifications and conference summaries, and then rationalizing information that doesn’t always align.
—Anna Forsythe, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
Headed one direction This line of thinking leads in one direction — rationalizing extreme measures in response.
—David French, Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2025
With this setup, and with two stars who have done well playing characters on their respective Houses with a great capacity for rationalizing their cruelty to others, The Girlfriend could easily get away with going back and forth on the blame game for most of its six-hour length.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 8 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rationalizing
Verb
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In explaining the plea agreement, Acosta claimed the case against Epstein was plagued with issues that may hinder a conviction.—
Adam Sabes,
FOXNews.com,
17 Oct. 2025
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The vendor had already begun explaining her offerings to me in a mix of Spanish and English, but the AirPods drowned out most of her words.—
Matteo Wong,
The Atlantic,
16 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Another important factor is whether a court is convinced that an employee’s speech about Kirk was serious enough to disrupt a college’s operations, thus justifying the employee’s firing.—
Jeffrey C. Sun,
The Conversation,
14 Oct. 2025
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The survey also found that 30% of finance leaders in the early stages of AI adoption struggle with justifying ROI, compared with 21% of those further along the AI journey, or AI leaders.—
Sheryl Estrada,
Fortune,
8 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Rationalizing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rationalizing. Accessed 19 Oct. 2025.
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