rational
Capable of reasoning.
Adjective
- Capable of reasoning.
- Man is a rational creature.
- The utility of valid arguments is a monument to our frailty: to the fact that we are not completely rational beings. - 2001, Mark Sainsbury, chapter 1, in Logical Forms — An Introduction to Philosophical Logic, 2nd...
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(economics) Behaving according to some partial order of preferences.
- Logically sound; not self-contradictory or otherwise absurd.
- His statements were quite rational.
- Prevention for the future is now almost universally allowed to be the only rational plea for the infliction of punishment; but this, when left to the arbitrary discretion of individuals, always has been found, and...
- Healthy or balanced intellectually; exhibiting reasonableness.
- rational conduct
- Temperature 99.8 degrees. Pulse 104. She was quite conscious and rational at times, at others very noisy. - 1867 C. Handfield Jones, Case Of Low Fever: Delirium: Incomplete Dementia. The British Medical Journal Vol. 2,...
- The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was...
- Comprising, or expressible as, a ratio
- ¾ is a rational number, but √2 is an irrational number.
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(arithmetic) Of a number, capable of being expressed as the ratio of two integers.
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(algebra) Of an algebraic expression in indeterminates, or more generally a function: capable of being expressed as the ratio of two polynomials.
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(algebraic geometry) Of a variety: (informally) geometrically simple almost everywhere; (formally) birationally equivalent to projective space
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(algebraic geometry) Of a function between varieties: acting as a morphism on an open subset of its domain.
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(algebraic geometry) Of a point on an algebraic variety over a field: whose coordinates belong to the field in question (in contrast to those points of the variety which are only defined over the algebraic closure of the base field).
- synonymous replacement for "condensed" in condensed formula.
Origin
From Old French rationel, rational, from Latin rationalis (“of or belonging to reason, rational, reasonable; having a ratio”), from ratio (“reason; calculation”).
Forms
Antonyms
absurd irrational nonsensical arbitrary arational non-rational
Related
arational irrational non-rational rationale rationality rationalness subrational suprarational
Derived
antirational biorational birational contrarational extrarational hyperrational nonrational overrational prerational preterrational pseudorational Ratfor rational basis review rational choice theory rational dress rational egoism rational egoist rational function rational horizon rationalisation rationalism rationalist rationalistic rationalization
Noun mathematics, sciences
- A rational number: a number that can be expressed as the quotient of two integers.
- The quotient of two rationals is again a rational.
Forms
Noun historical
- The breastplate worn by Israelite high priests.
- The Rationale of iudgement alſo thou shalt mke with embrodered worke of diuers colours, according to the workmanship of the Ephod of gold, hyacinth, and purple, and ſcarlet twiſe died, and twiſted ſilke. - 1609, The...
Origin
From Old French rational, from Medieval Latin rationale (“a pontifical stole, a pallium, an ornament worn over the chasuble”), neuter of Latin rationalis (“rational”), for which see the first etymology. Translation of λογεῖον (logeîon) or perhaps λόγιον (lógion, “oracle”) in the Septuagint version of Exodus 28.