The meaning of RATIONALIZE is to bring into accord with reason or cause something to seem reasonable. How to use rationalize in a sentence.

RATIONALIZED definition: 1. past simple and past participle of rationalize 2. to try to find reasons to explain your…. Learn more.

RATIONALIZE definition: 1. to try to find reasons to explain your behaviour, decisions, etc.: 2. to make a company, way of…. Learn more.

Rationalize means to justify by developing a rationale, or a set of reasons for something. You could rationalize cutting school, saying your classes are boring, but you are still doing what you shouldn't be doing.

If you try to rationalize attitudes or actions that are difficult to accept, you think of reasons to justify or explain them. He further rationalized his activity by convincing himself that he was actually promoting peace.

She tried to rationalize her grandson's strange behavior by blaming it on the boy's father. He couldn't rationalize buying such an expensive car. She knows she shouldn't have done it—she's just trying to rationalize. Management is thinking of ways to rationalize our system of production. Listening to his rationalizations [= excuses] makes me angry.

1. to ascribe (one's actions) to causes that seem reasonable but do not reflect true, unconscious, or less creditable causes. 2. to make conformable to reason. 3. Math. to eliminate radicals from (an equation or expression): to rationalize the denominator of a fraction.