explanation

UK/ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/US/ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/

nounA2+2 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,519 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: explanations

An explanation is the words that make a confusing thing clear. Why it happened, or how it works.

It takes of or for: an explanation of the rules, an explanation for the delay. There is a slight difference between the two, since explaining how something works and explaining why something went wrong are different jobs, and the second often shades into an excuse. Science calls its explanations theories. The verb explain never takes an indirect object without to, so you explain something to somebody, which is a very common learner error.

Definitions of explanation

1nounexplanationA statement that makes something clear or understandable.A2+~64%
“He gave a long explanation of how the system works.”
2nounreasonA reason given for something that has happened.A2~36%
“There is no innocent explanation for the missing money.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

Latin
explanatio — an explanation, interpretation
English, today
explanation

Built from

explanare · Latin — explain

From Latin explanatio (“an explanation, interpretation”), from explanare (“explain”); see explain. Morphologically explain + ation. Displaced native racu.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

explanation in the wild

Nonetheless, it remained an idealized version of scientific explanation, and one that was rather accurate when applied to modern physics.
Deductive-nomological model
The rational explanation holds that overly positive prior beliefs about one's skills are the source of false self-assessment.
Dunning–Kruger effect
Another explanation claims that self-assessment is more difficult and error-prone for low performers because many of them have very similar skill levels.
Dunning–Kruger effect
There will normally also be at least a brief explanation of any claims that were denied, along with a point to start an appeal.
Explanation of benefits
The Times added that no reason had been given for the ban, even after the Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee had requested an explanation from the IPC.
Chinese Taipei at the 2008 Summer Paralympics

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the explanare family

explanation

explanation — used about once every 167 pages · #1,519 · point at the bar for the others

explain

Definitions of explanation

1nounexplanationA statement that makes something clear or understandable.A2+~64%

“He gave a long explanation of how the system works.”

2nounreasonA reason given for something that has happened.A2~36%

“There is no innocent explanation for the missing money.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.