rationale

American  

[rash-uh-nal] / ˌræʃ əˈnæl /

noun

1. the fundamental reason or reasons serving to account for something.

   Synonyms:

   ground, basis, logic

2. a statement of reasons.

3. a reasoned exposition of principles.

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rationale British  

/ ˌræʃəˈnɑːl /

noun

1. a reasoned exposition, esp one defining the fundamental reasons for a course of action, belief, etc

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Etymology

Origin of rationale

First recorded in 1650–60; from Latin: neuter of ratiōnālis rational

Example Sentences

“The rationale for our upgrade is that we believe Fastly is likely to represent an underappreciated play on the growth in both LLM use and agentic AI,” he added.

From Barron's

Though he doesn’t go in for mush, Mayhew-Archer does at least provide a sort of rationale for the fraud: medical insurance declined to cover William’s Parkinson’s drugs.

From Los Angeles Times

The rationale is simple: Most startups fail, so the rare successes must be allowed to compensate meaningfully for those losses.

From The Wall Street Journal

"Collectively, our findings provide a rationale, on a quantitative basis, for building a framework for the mechanisms that drive mineral-organic associations involving iron oxides in the long-term preservation of organic matter," Aristilde said.

From Science Daily

The rationale is understandable given the current febrile markets, they say.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• excuse
• explanation
• hypothesis
• justification
• motivation
• motive
• philosophy
• principle
• rationalization
• reason
• theory