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rationalize
in a sentence

rationalize as in:  rationalize bad behavior

Show 3 more sentences
  • It seems they are off to Ivanovo to rationalize kulaks and collectivize tractors, and what have you.  (source)
  • "Is that how you rationalize it?" says Risa, "Making yourself believe we'll be happier?"  (source)
    rationalize = think of a good excuse for
  • I was afraid I'd deliberate, ruminate, agonize, rationalize, and talk myself into not going.  (source)
    rationalize = think of an excuse
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  • This lady's grandson might be facing life imprisonment without parole, but given the overwhelming number of death penalty cases on our docket, I couldn't rationalize taking on his case.  (source)
    rationalize = think of a good excuse for
  • He rationalized that he was so bewildered upon his arrival that he allowed such a thing.  (source)
    rationalized = excused bad behavior as reasonable
  • She'd always thought he was just rationalizing.  (source)
    rationalizing = using reason to make something bad seem reasonable
  • All of these rationalizations smote me as soon as I heard her voice.†  (source)
  • Tyler talked for a long time, moving through the events quickly but lingering in a wasteland of rationalization and self-recrimination.  (source)
    rationalization = thinking of excuses to explain bad behavior
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
  • Or she rationalizes, "I call him when he calls me."  (source)
    rationalizes = excuses (as good or reasonable)
  • Rationalising?†  (source)
    unconventional spelling: This is the British spelling. Americans spell it rationalizing.
  • IF KENNEDY CAN RATIONALIZE.  (source)
    RATIONALIZE = think of a good excuse for
  • But Wes rationalized. I am not actually selling drugs. All I'm doing is talking into a headset.  (source)
    rationalized = used reason to make excuses for bad behavior
  • So the part of my brain that was rationalizing all this made me go, all nonchalantly, "Yeah, okay."  (source)
    rationalizing = excusing (as good or reasonable)
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rare meaning

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  • Whenever you overrationalize, Mia, I know you're worried.  (source)
    overrationalize = overthink
  • As the ship's artificial night closed in they were each grateful to retire to separate cabins and try to rationalize their thoughts.  (source)
    rationalize = make sense of
  • Perhaps each hundred years or so men like them, like me, appeared in society, drifting through; and yet by all historical logic we, I, should have disappeared around the first part of the nineteenth century, rationalized out of existence.  (source)
    rationalized = removed through reasoning
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She went: "You're overrationalizing."  (source)
overrationalizing = overthinking
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