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
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
This entails the messy but necessary work of (finally) consolidating and rationalizing your tech portfolio to weed out duplicative or unneeded systems and applications.
—Forrester, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2025
Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 8 Sep. 2025
This entails the messy but necessary work of (finally) consolidating and rationalizing your tech portfolio to weed out duplicative or unneeded systems and applications.
—Forrester, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rationalizing
Verb
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Police took Taddese’s phone and vehicle as evidence, which alarmed the family, Bernard said, explaining some of the family’s reservations about the police investigation.—
PJ Green,
Kansas City Star,
12 Sep. 2025
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About The Daily Money Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer and financial news from USA TODAY, breaking down complex events, providing the TLDR version, and explaining how everything from Fed rate changes to bankruptcies impacts you.—
Betty Lin-Fisher,
USA Today,
12 Sep. 2025
Verb
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The Pentagon hasn't released information publicly justifying the destruction of the boat.—
Bart Jansen,
USA Today,
7 Sep. 2025
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Bob felt that Clark Gilmer was 'justifying the harm' done to trans people in her comments about King.—
EW.com,
EW.com,
1 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Rationalizing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rationalizing. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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