explain

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To make plain or comprehensible.
2. v. To define; expound: We explained our plan to the committee.
3. v. To offer reasons for or a cause of; justify: explain an error.
4. v. To offer reasons for the actions, beliefs, or remarks of (oneself).
5. v. To make something plain or comprehensible: Let me explain.
6. explain away To dismiss or get rid of by or as if by explaining.
7. explain away To minimize by explanation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make plain or flat; spread out in a flattened form; unfold.
2. To make plain or clear to the mind; render intelligible; unfold, analyze, state, or describe in such a manner as to make evident to the minds of others; exhibit the nature, meaning, or significance of; interpret; elucidate; expound.
3. To exhibit, disclose, or state the grounds or causes of the existence or occurrence of; reveal or state the causal or logical antecedents or conditions of; account for.
4. Synonyms Explain, Expound, Interpret, Elucidate. Explain is the most general of these words, and means to make plain, clear, and intelligible. Expound is used of elaborate, formal, or methodical explanation: as, to expound a text, the law, the philosophy of Aristotle. To interpret is to explain, as if from a foreign language, to make clear what before was dark, and generally by following the original closely, as word by word and line by line: as, to interpret Hegel, Swedenborg, Emerson. To elucidate is to bring or work out into the light that which before was dark, usually by means of illustration; the word generally implies, like expound, a somewhat protracted or elaborate process. See translate.
5. To give explanations.

Wiktionary

1. v. To give a sufficiently detailed report about (a) the reason for something, about why something happened, about a causal chain of events; about (b) how something works, about how elements in a system interact; about (c) how to do something, about the steps which need to be accomplished in order to accomplish a certain goal.
2. v. To give a valid excuse for some past behavior.
3. v. To make flat, smooth out.
4. v. To unfold or make visible.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To flatten; to spread out; to unfold; to expand.
2. v. To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to expound; to unfold and illustrate the meaning of.
3. v. To give an explanation.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. serve as a reason or cause or justification of
2. v. make plain and comprehensible
3. v. define.