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Explain vs Exercise - What's the difference?

explain | exercise |

As verbs the difference between explain and exercise

is that explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of while exercise is to exert for the sake of training or improvement; to practice in order to develop.

As a noun exercise is

any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability.

explain

English

(Explanation)

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.

    Synonyms

    * (give a sufficiently detailed report) expound, elaborate

    exercise

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability.
  • :
  • *(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
  • *:desire of knightly exercise
  • *(John Locke) (1632-1705)
  • *:an exercise of the eyes and memory
  • Physical activity intended to improve strength and fitness.
  • *
  • *:This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking.He was smooth-faced, and his fresh skin and well-developed figure bespoke the man in good physical condition through active exercise , yet well content with the world's apportionment.
  • A setting in action or practicing; employment in the proper mode of activity; exertion; application; use.
  • *(Thomas Jefferson) (1743-1826)
  • *:exercise of the important function confided by the constitution to the legislature
  • * (1809-1892)
  • *:O we will walk this world, / Yoked in all exercise of noble end.
  • The performance of an office, ceremony, or duty.
  • *(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • *:Lewis refused even those of the church of Englandthe public exercise of their religion.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:to draw him from his holy exercise
  • (lb) That which gives practice; a trial; a test.
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:Patience is more oft the exercise / Of saints, the trial of their fortitude.
  • Alternative forms

    * exercice * excercise

    Derived terms

    * exercise book * exercise machine * five-finger exercise * floor exercise * military exercise

    Verb

    (exercis)
  • To exert for the sake of training or improvement; to practice in order to develop.
  • :
  • To perform physical activity for health or training.
  • :
  • To use (a right, an option, etc.); to put into practice.
  • :
  • :
  • *Bible, (w) xxii. 29
  • *:The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery.
  • To occupy the attention and effort of; to task; to tax, especially in a painful or vexatious manner; harass; to vex; to worry or make anxious.
  • :
  • *(and other bibliographic particulars for citation) (John Milton)
  • *:Where pain of unextinguishable fire / Must exercise us without hope of end.
  • (lb) To set in action; to cause to act, move, or make exertion; to give employment to.
  • *Bible, (w) xxiv. 16
  • *:Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence.
  • *
  • *:Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence.