rationalization
Americannoun
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the act or process of ascribing one’s actions, opinions, etc., to causes that seem reasonable and valid but are actually unrelated to the true, possibly unconscious and often less complimentary ones.
Those who torture prisoners believe, in their loftiest rationalizations, that they are committing their deeds for the good of the nation.
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the act or process of making something conformable to reason or to the principle that reason is the highest authority for truth.
In conceiving the world as a Newtonian universe governed by natural laws, Taylor provided the conceptual framework for the rationalization of the world in the 20th century.
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Chiefly British. the act or process of reorganizing and integrating an industry, company, etc., to make it more efficient and profitable.
The film studios were able to achieve such remarkable production figures through a rationalization of their working practices.
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Mathematics. the act or process of eliminating radicals from an equation or expression.
Rationalization will make calculation easier, as the denominator will now be an integer instead of a radical.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rationalization
Explanation
Rationalization means organizing something into a logically coherent system. Factory organization is often rationalized to make it as efficient as possible. Sometimes rationalization means a way someone justifies their action. You might take the last piece of chocolate cake because, gosh darn it, you wanted it, but you justify it with the rationalization that "it was just going to go to waste."
Vocabulary lists containing rationalization
100 SAT words Beginning with "R"
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Between the World and Me
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
So I thought to myself my rationalization was, well, maybe it’d be really good for me to work for 52 weeks out of a year.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
With the Times, he plays out the “family” rationalization by getting weepy over a colleague who ventured pregnant into a war zone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
While Rockefeller was the most spectacularly successful at monopoly building—what he gently termed “cooperation”—he was also part of a greater movement in American business toward rationalization and centralization.
From Barron's ● May 2, 2026
“Marketplace is undergoing a rationalization, addition by subtraction, as we reduce our exposure while the risk pool stabilizes,” Zubretsky said, according to a FactSet transcript.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 23, 2025
Tyler talked for a long time, moving through the events quickly but lingering in a wasteland of rationalization and self-recrimination.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.