All 3 Uses of
rational
in
War and Peace
- To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous man.†
Chpt 6rational = reasonable
- In Prince Andrew's eyes Speranski was the man he would himself have wished to be—one who explained all the facts of life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was capable of applying the standard of reason to everything.†
Chpt 6
- And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade—the deliverance of Jerusalem—had been clearly defined by historic leaders.†
Chpt 15 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(rational as in: rational behavior) reasonable, able to think clearly, or based on logic rather than emotion
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, rational numbers in mathematics are numbers that can be expressed as a fraction consisting of only an integer in the numerator and denominator. For example, 1/3 is a rational number while pi is an irrational number.