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.
• There are all kinds of ways to think about this and rationalize it.
  — Tom Hoffarth, Orange County Register, 29 Apr. 2017
• So don't judge your grief, or try to rationalize your way around it.
  — Andrea Park, Allure, 10 Sep. 2018
• 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
• In other words, don't try and rationalize moves like this.
  — Jj Kinahan, Forbes, 16 Feb. 2024
• There is no way to rationalize the six consecutive losses to the league's two worst teams.
  — Bill Plaschke, latimes.com, 18 May 2018
• 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
• The currency mix-up can sort of be rationalized by the fact that Malaysia and the Philippines have banknotes in similar shades of blue.
  — Christopher Bagley, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 Nov. 2018
• 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
• Is Gettleman’s grade that much higher on Barkley than Chubb to rationalize the No.
  — Conor Orr, SI.com, 18 Apr. 2018
• 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
• Romeo masters the art of rationalizing his own crimes by being shocked at them.
  — Colin Covert, star-telegram.com, 10 May 2017
• 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
• But how and when Trump would fire him — and how it would be rationalized to the public — was the subject of considerable debate.
  — Philip Rucker, Washington Post, 13 May 2017
• 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
• The Cavs, though, are rationalizing it this way: three of those Indiana wins came before the trade deadline.
  — cleveland.com, 16 Apr. 2018
• But here’s a thought: why does the president even need to go through the motions of rationalizing his most dubious ideas?
  — Benjamin Hart, Daily Intelligencer, 10 Feb. 2018
• The goal of this new alignment would be to better rationalize and align strategies to collectively cope with the challenges brought on by state and nonstate actors.
  — Jeffrey W. Hornung, Foreign Affairs, 10 Apr. 2024
• On the other hand, if at least some of these factors have checkmarks in the positive column, the result may provide enough justification to rationalize staying in place, but not enough to overcome the feeling of stuck-ness.
  — Dr. Gary McClain, TIME, 15 July 2024

Last Updated: 28 Oct 2024