What is the difference between justify and rationalize?
justify | rationalize |
To provide an acceptable explanation for.
To be a good, acceptable reason for; warrant.
* E. Everett
To arrange (text) on a page or a computer screen such that the left and right ends of all lines within paragraphs are aligned.
To absolve, and declare to be free of blame or sin
* Shakespeare
* Bible, Acts xiii. 39
To prove; to ratify; to confirm.
To make something rational or more rational.
To justify an immoral act, or illogical behaviour. “The process of thought by which one justifies a discreditable act, and by which one offers to oneself and the world a better motive for one's action than the true motive”
(mathematics) To remove radicals, without changing the value of an expression or the roots of an equation.
To structure something along modern, efficient and systematic lines, or according to scientific principles.
As verbs the difference between justify and rationalize
is that justify is to provide an acceptable explanation for while rationalize is to make something rational or more rational.justify
English
Alternative forms
* justifie (obsolete)Verb
- How can you justify spending so much money on clothes?
- Paying too much for car insurance is not justified .
- Nothing can justify your rude behaviour last night.
- Unless the oppression is so extreme as to justify' revolution, it would not ' justify the evil of breaking up a government.
- The text will look better justified .
- I cannot justify whom the law condemns.
- By him all that believe are justified' from all things, from which ye could not be ' justified by the law of Moses.
- (Shakespeare)