explain
verbEtymology
From Middle English explanen, from Old French explaner, from Latin explanō (“to flatten, spread out, make plain or clear, explain”), from ex- (“out”) + planō (“to flatten, make level”), from planus (“level, plain”); see plain and plane. Compare esplanade, splanade. Displaced Old English reċċan.
Definitions
To make plain, manifest, or intelligible
To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
- 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.
To give the reason for, justification for, or cause of.
To make flat, smooth out.
›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer
To unfold or make visible.
- 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.
To make something plain or intelligible.
- 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.
- Like their Western counterparts, local media engages in shorthand - it reports rather than explains.
The neighborhood
- synonymabsolve
- synonymclarify
- synonymdescribe
- synonymdirect
- synonymdisclose
- synonymexplain
- synonymillustrate
- synonyminform
- synonyminstruct
- synonymjustify
- synonymspecify
- synonymteach
- antonymobscure
- neighborexplanation
- neighborexplanatorily
- neighborexplanatory
- neighborcommunicate
Derived
afore-explained, dexify, explainability, explainable, explain away, explainee, explainer, explainify, explainingly, explanification, mansplain, misexplain, overexplain, please explain, re-explain, retain and explain, -splain, underexplain, unexplained, weedsplain, Westplainer, Westsplain, Westsplaining
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at explain. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at explain. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
8 hops · closes at explain
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA