rationalization
Appearance
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]First attested in 1831. From French rationalisation, equivalent to rational + -ization or rationalize + -ation.
Noun
[edit]rationalization (countable and uncountable, plural rationalizations)
- The process or result of rationalizing.
- Coordinate term: casuistry
- 2014 October 17, Daniel W. Crofts, “What Union Soldiers Thought About the Civil War”, in The New York Times[1]:
- But, he insisted, he was neither a “Union Saver” nor a “freedom shrieker.” He rejected all high-flown rationalizations for the war effort — “to hell with the devilish twaddle about freedom.”
- 2024 September 16, Gabrielle Giffords, “Gabby Giffords: It’s the Guns. It’s Always the Guns.”, in The New York Times[2]:
- After every shooting, blame and rationalizations fly. I know, because I was shot in the head at a 2011 congressional event near my home in Tucson, Ariz. Eighteen other people were shot at that event, six of whom died.
- A statement of one's motives, or of the causes of some event.
- (economics) The reorganization of a company or organization in order to improve its efficiency through the reallocation of resources and changes in its workforce.
- Synonym: consolidation
- 1915 May, John Spargo, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science[3], volume 59, page 160:
- For socialism involves the reconstruction of industry upon the principle of production for use. It involves the rationalization of industry, the proper adjustment of production to the social requirements.
- 1930 September, Ian MacGregor, “Problems of Rationalisation”, in The Economic Journal[4], volume 40, number 159, page 351:
- The former, technical rationalisation, is a question of improvements carried out within businesses by the managers, methods like scientific management, the rapidity with which machinery is scrapped, the supervision of labour, by the stop-watch method or any other method, and generally what we economists have been in the habit of calling "internal economies."
- (psychiatry) The concealment of true motivation in some non-threatening way.
- (mathematics) The simplification of an expression without changing its value.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]process or result of rationalizing
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statement of one's motives
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reorganization of a company
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concealment of true motivation
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simplification of a mathematical expression
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