Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RAT'I-FY, v.t. [Fr. ratifier; L. ratum facio, to make firm.]

1. To confirm; to establish; to settle. We have ratified to them the borders of Judea. – 1 Macc.
2. To approve and sanction; to make valid; as, to ratify an agreement or treaty.

RAT'I-FY-ING, ppr.

Confirming; establishing; approving and sanctioning.

RAT'ING, ppr. [from rate.]

1. Setting at a certain value; assigning rank to; estimating.
2. Chiding; reproving.

RA'TIO, n. [ra'sho; L. from ratus, reor, to think or suppose, to set, confirm or establish. Reor is contracted from redor or retor, and primarily signifies to throw, to thrust, hence to speak, to set in the mind, to think, like L. suppono; and setting gives the sense of a fixed rate or rule. See Reason.]

Proportion, or the relation of homogeneous things which determines the quantity of one from the quantity of another without the intervention of a third. – Encyc. The relation which one quantity has to another of the same kind, as expressed by the quotient of the one divided by the other. Thus the ratio of 4 to 2 is 4/2 or 2; and the ratio of 5 to 6 is 5/6. This is geometrical ratio, which is that signified when the term is used without distinction; but arithmetical ratio is the difference between two quantities. Thus the arithmetical ratio of 2 to 8 is 4. Ratio respects magnitudes of the same kind only. One line may be compared with another line, but a line can not be compared with a superficies, and hence between a line and a superficies there can be no ratio. – Encyc.

RA'TIO-CIN-ATE, v.i. [L. ratiocinor, from ratio, reason.]

To reason; to argue. [Little used.]

RA-TIO-CIN-A'TION, n. [L. ratiocinatio.]

The act or process of reasoning, or of deducing consequences from premises. [See Reasoning.] – Brown. South.

RA-TIO-CIN'A-TIVE, a.

Argumentative; consisting in the comparison of propositions or facts, and the deduction of inferences from the comparison; as, a ratiocinative process. Hale. [A bad word, and little used.]

RA'TION, n. [Fr. from L. ratio, proportion.]

A portion or fixed allowance of provisions, drink and food assigned to each soldier in an army for his daily subsistent and for the subsistence of horses. Officers have several rations according to their rank or number of attendants. Seamen in the navy also have rations of certain articles. – Encyc.

RA'TION-AL, a. [Fr. rationnel; It. razionale; L. rationalis.]

1. Having reason or the faculty of reasoning; endowed with reason; opposed to irrational; as, man is a rational being; brutes are not rational animals. It is our glory and happiness to have a rational nature. – Law.
2. Agreeable to reason; opposed to absurd; as, a rational conclusion or inference; rational conduct.
3. Agreeable to reason; not extravagant.
4. Acting in conformity to reason; wise; judicious; as, a rational man.

RA'TION-AL, n.

A rational being. – Young.

RA-TION-A'LE, n.

1. A detail with reasons; a series of reasons assigned; as, Dr. Sparrow's rationale of the Common Prayer.
2. An account or solution of the principles of some opinion, action, hypothesis, phenomenon, &c. – Encyc.

RA'TION-AL-ISM, n.

A system of opinions deduced from reason, as distinct from inspiration or opposed to it. – Bib. Repos.

RA'TION-AL-IST, n.

1. One who proceeds in his disquisitions and practice wholly upon reason. – Bacon.
2. “Rationalists may be said to comprehend those latitudinarians, who consider the supernatural events recorded in the Old and New Testaments, as events happening in the ordinary course of nature, but described by the writers, without any real ground, as supernatural, and who consider the morality of the Scriptures, as subject to the test of human reason.” – C. Butler. The definition applies to the writings of certain German divines.

RA-TION-AL'I-TY, n.

1. The power of reasoning. God has made rationality the common portion of mankind. – Gov. of the Tongue.
2. Reasonableness. Well directed intentions, whose rationalities will not bear a rigid examination. – Brown.

RA'TION-AL-IZE, v.t.

To convert to rationalism.

RA'TION-AL-LY, adv.

In consistency with reason; reasonably. We rationally expect every man will pursue his own happiness.

RA'TION-AL-NESS, n.

The state of being rational or consistent with reason.

RAT'LIN, or RAT'LINE, n.

A small line traversing the shrouds of a ship, making, the step of a ladder for ascending to the mast-heads. – Dict.

RA-TOON', n. [Sp. retoño; retoñar, to sprout again.]

1. A sprout from the root of the sugar-cane, which has been cut. – Edwards' W. Indies.
2. The heart leaves in a tobacco plant.

RATS'BANE, n. [rat and bane.]

Poison for rats; arsenous acid.

RATS'BAN-ED, a.

Poisoned by ratsbane. – Junius.

RAT'-TAIL, n.

In farriery, an excrescence growing from the pattern to the middle of the shank of a horse. – Encyc.

RAT-TEEN', n. [Sp. ratina, ratteen, and a musk mouse.]

A thick woolen stuff quilled or twilled.

RAT-TI-NET', n.

A woolen stuff thinner than ratteen.

RAT'TLE, n.

1. A rapid succession of sharp clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum. – Prior.
2. A rapid succession of words sharply uttered; loud rapid talk; clamorous chiding.
3. An instrument with which a clattering sound is made. The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brogan nearly more resemble each other. – Ralegh. The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy. – Pope.
4. A plant of the genus Pedicularis, lousewort. – Fam. of Plants. Yellow rattle, a plant of the genus Rhinanthus. – Ibm.