Rationalization

Common quotidian synonymosity in practice has abused language.
Words that are not really that synonymous are listed as synonyms in common dictionaries.
E.g. ‘rationalize’ and ‘justify’. There's a "world of" difference between those two, but they are too often used as perfect synonyms. If they were perfect synonyms then the TV-series «Justified» might as well be called «Rationalized». 😂
There should be a scale of synonymosity.
Sure, justification could be called a type of rationalization, but a mere rationalization is not a justification.
In both Philosophy of Action and Meta-ethics, the two terms are used interchangable. In ordinary language, however, 'rationalization' has a kind of negative connotation, but one linked to 'justify' When we rationalize our behavior, what we are doing is citing reasons that they might think would justify our behavior, but were not the reasons we acted upon.
A criminal often rationalizes his actions but often they are not justified. They were rationalized but not justified by his reasoning. Like people may offer supposed excuses, but that does not necessarily make them excused. So what they offered weren't really excuses but pseudo-excuses or mere rationalizations.