“Rationalize” or “Rationalise”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 4 prefer “rationalize” and 4 prefer “rationalise”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	rationalize	rationalise	Preference
United States	99	1	“rationalize”
United Kingdom	20	80	“rationalise”
India	54	46	“rationalize”
Philippines	100	0	“rationalize”
Canada	97	3	“rationalize”
Australia	22	78	“rationalise”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	32	68	“rationalise”
New Zealand	27	73	“rationalise”
Jamaica	0	0	Not enough data
Trinidad & Tobago	0	0	Not enough data
Guyana	0	0	Not enough data

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“rationalize”

…using an anti-drug message to rationalize its excesses."
…New Zealand Railways Corporation to rationalize the locomotive fleet in the…
…their own ship, which they rationalize as hallucinations.
…of Normative Position Theory Cannot Rationalize the Current Law (February 4,
…Darwinism as an attempt to rationalize group prejudice.
…Feijóo y Montenegro attempted to rationalize the fact without getting much
The discipline can only rationalize the world and support a…
…policy of municipal amalgamations to rationalize municipal levels of government services…
…include their own reasoning to rationalize the existence of humanoid fighting
…pressure that causes them to rationalize committing a dishonest act.

“rationalise”

…Track Corporation commenced work to rationalise the tracks within the yard…
…attempts have been made to rationalise his assertions.
…attempts have been made to rationalise the classification of cheese; a…
In order to rationalise their operations, construction of Brush…
…and of IPC's desire to rationalise its titles and eliminate duplication,…
…date of birth and may rationalise the request by offering an…
…this way, these publishers could rationalise and standardise publishing, marketing, printing,
…most important in the stories, rationalise the impossible, gather what's left…
…economists in their attempt to rationalise the connections between the equity…
…be made to normalise, legitimise, rationalise, deny, or minimise the abusive…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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