How to Use rationalize in a Sentence

rationalize

verb

• She knows she shouldn't have done it—she's just trying to rationalize.
• She tried to rationalize her grandson's strange behavior by blaming it on the boy's father.
• Management is thinking of ways to rationalize our system of production.
• He couldn't rationalize buying such an expensive car.
• Tino tried to rationalize, but Rachel pushed back on him.
  — Haley Kluge, Variety, 20 Sep. 2022
• Get the cold, hard facts, and don’t discount or rationalize them.
  — Alissa Jubelirer, Rolling Stone, 21 Mar. 2023
• But if the ask was something that couldn’t be rationalized away, the direct approach was best.
  — Elliot Ackerman, WIRED, 8 Feb. 2024
• Many people at airports this week thought long and hard about whether to go somewhere and found a way to rationalize it.
  — Tamara Lush, USA TODAY, 24 Dec. 2020
• People like him rationalize their hypocrisies all the time.
  — Nina Metz, chicagotribune.com, 26 July 2021
• The Olympics, which claim to be a movement promoting peace and unity, are used to rationalize the buying and selling of arms.
  — Dvora Meyers, Longreads, 7 Aug. 2020
• Less obvious are those who repeat the cliché in order to rationalize their own choice not to spend on wine.
  — New York Times, 29 Apr. 2021
• Meanwhile, my frontal lobe—the part that takes care of reasoning—is trying to rationalize these thoughts and reduce the fear.
  — Sean Abrams, Men's Health, 22 June 2023
• That allowed the patron saint of the modern GOP (and his successors) to rationalize massive tax cuts for the rich.
  — Yvonne Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Mar. 2021
• That last bit of rationalizing ignores the obvious: This is not a court of law.
  — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 7 Aug. 2019
• Banks need to rationalize use cases aligned to their strategies across both short-term and long-term horizons.
  — Sudhir Pai, Forbes, 15 Mar. 2022
• Even with the Foligno and Hall injuries, Sweeney could have stuck with the status quo and rationalized his reasons for doing so.
  — Chad Finn, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Mar. 2023
• One thing Levin doesn’t try to rationalize is what a wild ride the rolling paper industry has given him.
  — Will Yakowicz, Forbes, 20 Apr. 2023
• Hamlin later tried to rationalize his reasons for the message and has since deleted the tweet.
  — Lorenzo Reyes, USA TODAY, 26 Apr. 2022
• How exactly is the district rationalizing a $30.2 million increase in one project in such a short amount of time?
  — Joe Soucheray, Twin Cities, 14 Dec. 2019
• Russians can select the messages that most resonate for them—and that best rationalize the Kremlin’s actions.
  — Maria Snegovaya, Foreign Affairs, 16 Nov. 2023
• Acknowledge your feelings and feel them all the way through without trying to rationalize them away.
  — Tarot Astrologers, chicagotribune.com, 28 Feb. 2021
• An owner could rationalize that the aircraft would not be owned for 16 years, so there is no need to worry about an inspection so far into the future.
  — Kevin O'Leary, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2023
• The moment every teacher, student, and parent in the United States has worried about, pictured in their minds, and then tried to rationalize away?
  — Hazlitt, 7 Dec. 2022
• Hannah’s the kind of person who can rationalize the mean comments, convincing herself that the commenter is having a bad day.
  — cleveland, 13 June 2020
• Bigger than the stories that have been told about her for four decades, larger than mythologies created to rationalize her death.
  — John Archibald | [e-mail], al, 26 Oct. 2019
• The real mystery is why some people will go to any end to rationalize state violence against Black bodies.
  — Charles M. Blow New York Times, Star Tribune, 8 Mar. 2021
• Allow an open and free marketplace in health care and pricing will rationalize.
  — WSJ, 19 Feb. 2021
• But Richard begins to rationalize: Are these robot ears?
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023
• That audience, for Christof and for all those who defer to him, rationalizes everything else.
  — Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 20 June 2023
• One of my sweet friends who has worked in marketing and events rationalized it as an operational breakdown that could’ve happened at any large event.
  — Jasmine Browley, Essence, 1 Nov. 2023

Last Updated: 28 May 2024