• IPA: /ɪkˈspleɪn/, /ɛkˈspleɪn/

explain (explains, present participle explaining; past and past participle explained)

1. 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.

2. To give a valid excuse for past behavior.
3. (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
4. (obsolete) To unfold or make visible.

   • The horse-chestnut is […] ready to explain its leaf.

5. (intransitive) To make something plain or intelligible.

• (give a sufficiently detailed report) expound, elaborate, recce

• explanation
• explanatory

• French: expliquer
• German: erklären, erläutern
• Italian: spiegare, chiosare, illustrare
• Portuguese: explicar, explanar
• Russian: объясни́ть
• Spanish: explicar

• French: justifier
• German: erklären
• Portuguese: explicar
• Russian: опра́вдывать
• Spanish: explicar