explain
Pronunciation
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Pronunciation
- IPA: /ɪkˈspleɪn/, /ɛkˈspleɪn/
explain (explains, present participle explaining; past and past participle explained)
- To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
- To explain a chapter of the Bible.
- 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen, OCLC 12026604 ↗; republished New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919, OCLC 491297620 ↗:
- 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 a valid excuse for past behavior.
- (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
- (obsolete) To unfold or make visible.
- The horse-chestnut is […] ready to explain its leaf.
- (intransitive) To make something plain or intelligible.
- French: expliquer
- German: erklären, erläutern
- Italian: spiegare, chiosare, illustrare
- Portuguese: explicar, explanar
- Russian: объясни́ть
- Spanish: explicar
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.002