explain

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Will you explain--explain to me?

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Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (8)

  1. transitive verb To make plain or comprehensible.
  2. transitive verb To define; expound: We explained our plan to the committee.
  3. transitive verb To offer reasons for or a cause of; justify: explain an error.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • I'll explain, after This promise to "explain" was given in consequence of the great anxiety he, the captain, displayed to drag Ruby into the cottage The youth did not require much pressing, however. —  The Lighthouse
  • And I have been very unhappy till I could explain You don't explain--you can't explain," Mrs Dallow declared, turning on her companion eyes which, in spite of her studied stillness, expressed deep excitement. —  The Tragic Muse
  • Will you explain--explain to me? —  In Search of the Unknown
  • And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and I suppose there is not. —  Jason
  • The English words are arranged in order of their terminations, and each is furnished with a Latin equivalent Of all the works which we have yet considered, Latin was an essential element: whether the object was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies before the fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, or as in the Promptorium and Catholicon_, the Abecedarium and the Alvearie_, and other works of the sixteenth century, to render English words into Latin. —  The evolution of English lexicography
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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explain:   explained ·  explaining ·  explains
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English explanen, from Latin explānāre : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex- + plānus, clear; see pelə-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Old French explaner = Spanish Portuguese explanar = Italian spianare, from Latin explanare, flatten, spread out, make plain or clear, explain, from ex, out, + planare, flatten, make level, from planus, level, plain: see plain, plane. Cf. esplanade, splanade.
 

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/ɛksˈpleɪn/
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