Explain

/ɪkˈspleɪn/ · verb

Meaning

(transitive) To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
2. (transitive) To give the reason for, justification for, or cause of.
3. (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
4. (obsolete) To unfold or make visible.
5. (intransitive) To make something plain or intelligible.

Example Sentences

The issue was explained to the governor in detail.

The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits. He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. Nobody would miss them, he explained.

Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.

He concisely explains that Whig histories tend to "praise revolutions [for history of science, we could read novelties, ideas or individuals] provided they have been successful, emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present".

It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].

April 14, 1684, John Evelyn, a letter sent to the Royal Society concerning the damage done to his gardens by the preceding winter The horse-chestnut is […] ready to explain its leaf.

She tried to explain but he wouldn’t listen.

It is easy to modify the account to take this into account, by explaining not just in terms of a set of reasons but in terms of a set of reason–weight pairs.

Synonyms for explain

Antonyms for explain

Related Words

Word Forms

• explains
• explaining
• explained
• explane

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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