Other forms: clarified, clarifying, clarifies
To clarify something is to make it clear when it was not. A teacher stops mid-sentence to clarify what the homework actually is; you send one more email to clarify whether the meeting is at two or at three.
Clarify goes with the things people say and write — a point, a rule, a position, a misunderstanding. It answers a confusion that already exists, so you clarify something FOR someone: "Let me clarify that for you." In the kitchen clarify is literal: you clarify butter by melting it slowly and pouring off the milky bits, leaving clear golden fat. The noun is clarification, and "could I ask for some clarification" is the polite move in a work email. You do not clarify a window or a blurry photo; for those you say clean, or sharpen.
1verbexplainTo make something easier to understand by explaining it further.~93%
“Could you clarify what you mean by "soon"?”
2verbclarifyTo make a liquid clear by removing the solid bits from it, especially butter.~7%
“Clarify the butter first, then fry the spices in it.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Clarify is two Latin words stuck together: clārus, "clear", and facio, "make". Make clear — that is the whole word, and it has not moved an inch since. It reached English through Old French clarifiier and Middle English clarifien, and English later rebuilt the very same idea out of its own parts: clear plus -ify.
Proto-Indo-European
*kelh₁-
Latin
clarifico
Old French
clarifiier
Middle English
clarifien
English, today
clarify
Built from
From Middle English clarifien, from Old French clarifiier, from Latin clarifico; clārus (“clear”) + facio (“make”). Semantically clear + ify.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA