Verb

(en verb)

To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

*

The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits. He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. Nobody would miss them, he explained .

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03

, author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106 , magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Pixels or Perish , passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}

To give a valid excuse for some past behavior.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}

(obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.

(obsolete) To unfold or make visible.

* (John Evelyn) (1620-1706)

The horse-chestnut isready to explain its leaf.

Verb

(elucidat)

To make clear; to clarify; to shed light upon.

* 1817 , , Northanger Abbey , ch. 13:

The business, however, though not perfectly elucidated by this speech, soon ceased to be a puzzle.

* 1960 , " Medicine: Unmasking the Brain," Time , 4 April:

[P]hysicians at the annual meeting of the American Academy of General Practice were fascinated by a 3-ft. model showing the brain's components in 20 layers of translucent plastic, and wired for colored lights to elucidate some of its workings.

* 2004 , David Bernstein, “ Philosophy Hitches a Ride With ‘The Sopranos’,” New York Times , 13 April (retrieved 19 Aug. 2009):

The new Sopranos volume has 17 essays that examine the television show and elucidate concepts from classical philosophers, including Aristotle, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Sun Tzu and Plato.