Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make clear or easier to understand; elucidate: clarified her intentions.
- v. To clear of confusion or uncertainty: clarify the mind.
- v. To make clear by removing impurities or solid matter, as by heating gently or filtering: clarify butter.
- v. To become clear.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To glorify.
- To make clear; especially, purify from feculent matter; defecate; fine: applied particularly to liquors: as, to clarify wine or saccharine syrup. See clarification.
- To brighten; purify; make clear, in a figurative sense; free from obscurities or defects; render luminous; render intelligent or intelligible.
- To grow or become clear or free from feculent matter; become pure, as liquors: as, cider clarifies by fermentation.
- To become clear intellectually; grow clear or perspicuous.
Wiktionary
- v. To make clear or bright by freeing from feculent matter; to defecate; to fine; -- said of liquids, as wine or syrup.
- v. To make clear; to free from obscurities; to brighten or illuminate.
- v. ergative To grow or become clear or transparent; to become free from feculent impurities, as wine or other liquid under clarification.
- v. ergative To grow clear or bright; to clear up.
- v. obsolete To glorify.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make clear or bright by freeing from feculent matter; to defecate; to fine; -- said of liquids, as wine or sirup.
- v. To make clear; to free from obscurities; to brighten or illuminate.
- v. obsolete To glorify.
- v. To grow or become clear or transparent; to become free from feculent impurities, as wine or other liquid under clarification.
- v. To grow clear or bright; to clear up.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make clear by removing impurities or solids, as by heating
- v. make clear and (more) comprehensible
Etymologies
- From French clarifier, from Latin clarificare; clarus ("clear") + facere ("make"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English clarifien, from Old French clarifier, from Late Latin clārificāre : Latin clārus, clear; see clear + Latin -ficāre, -fy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“What David has failed to clarify is that what he means by "working rifle" is that you have to "work your a@# off" to buy one!”
A Top-Notch Working Rifle: David Petzal Reviews the Montana Rifle Company Model 1999 Ridgeline
“If you're going to approach front loading as an engineering problem, the first thing you need to clarify is whether there's any engineering differences to look for between a normal mindless variation and a front loaded variation.”
“One writer, however, Mr Harry Stuart, has made a little book called We Have Kept the Faith, where, though one finds no perfect poem, one finds constant beauty of metaphor and strangeness of thought, and so no lucky accident but a personality.289 Will his expression clarify, his music grow strong and confident, or will his promise remain unfulfilled?”
“Just to clarify, the Russian word “negr” simply means a black person, someone of negroid race.”
Racism In Russia: Obama Only Too Happy To Channel Bo Jangles « Sigmund, Carl and Alfred
“What he neglects to clarify is that we, as members of the armed forces, are sworn to do more than simply obey; we are sworn to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
“One thing I wanted to clarify is that the attack does not require the attacker to have any physical proximity to the victim.”
Drive-by Web attack aimed at home routers…what? — Meandering Passage
“The only detail I would like to clarify is that there was no "stylising" whatsoever of the archival Super 8mm or vintage home video footage that was found and used in the film.”
“September 30th, 2005 at 11: 33 am sorry to sound like homer simpson, but just to clarify is Winmx no longer available free.”
“(According to reports, the White House has expressed displeasure with Paterson's remarks which the Governor has since sought to "clarify" -- albeit not very convincingly.)”
Keli Goff: Why Gov. Paterson is Right: Race Will Cost Him His Job
“What it doesn’t clarify is punitive infringement fines for personal infringement.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clarify’.
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
+
2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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On speaking terms
Verbs describing speech. We are all tired of He said, She said. Here are some alternative verbs.
stated, declare, state, assert, affirm, air, articulate, deliver, describe, clarify, elucidate, enunciate and 19 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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ff
attribute, sticking, distinct, perseverance, trend, clarify, avoidant, ambivalent, disoriented, cling, prompting, appositive and 94 more...
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my list
executive, oxide, slang, paddy, calamity, pledge, carved, deliberate, vastly, tolerate, simultaneous, ornamental and 114 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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luckylime's Words
cacophony, cascade, trigger, crunch, vellum paper, arduous, luminescent, voluminous, euphoric, bucolic, diaphanous, danger and 162 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clarify.

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