rationalist
Americannoun
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rationalists
plural
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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anti-rationalistadjective
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hyper-rationalistadjective
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non-rationalistadjective
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post-rationalistadjective
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rationalisticadjective
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ultra-rationalistadjective
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rationalisticallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In a state where modern politics was shaped by rationalist thought and the Self-Respect Movement - which envisioned a society where marginalised castes would have equal rights - the visible turn to faith feels deliberate.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
“For us to conclude that a law of 160 years’ vintage, with this kind of empirical pedigree, has all along been both unnecessary and improper, would border on rationalist conceit.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026
His father had been dead for eight years — and he’d been a scientist and a rationalist — but there he was, trying to comfort his son.
From New York Times ● May 21, 2024
Intriguingly, a few informal but large surveys from the rationalist community suggest that both complete monogamy and complete polyamory tend to be more satisfying than the “monogamish” middle ground.
From Slate ● May 5, 2024
On most questions Descartes is a rationalist, but as far as the laws of nature are concerned he appears to want to have it both ways.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
The young man was part of a loose network called the Zizians: self-proclaimed rationalists who believe a misaligned AI superintelligence could one day torture humanity the way factory farms torture animals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
This represents one of the oldest debates in human thought: rationalists vs. empiricists.
From Slate ● Sep. 26, 2025
Lasota began blogging using the alias "Ziz", but soon fell out with mainstream rationalists as her writings spun off in bizarre directions.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2025
They include atheists, agnostics, the culturally religious but not observant, rationalists and the spiritual but not religious.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 4, 2023
The existence of this romantic tendency constitutes at least a small part of the emotional makeup of most mathematicians, and is perhaps surprising to those who think of mathematicians as cold rationalists.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
