What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Explore vs Explain - What's the difference?

explore | explain |

As verbs the difference between explore and explain

is that explore is to seek for something or after someone while explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

explore

English

Verb

(explor)
  • (obsolete) To seek for something or after someone.
  • To examine or investigate something systematically.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katie L. Burke
  • , title= In the News , volume=101, issue=3, page=193, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. A recent study explored the ecological variables that may contribute to bats’ propensity to harbor such zoonotic diseases by comparing them with another order of common reservoir hosts: rodents.}}
  • To travel somewhere in search of discovery.
  • (medicine) To examine diagnostically.
  • To (seek) experience first hand.
  • To be engaged exploring in any of the above senses.
  • To wander without any particular aim or purpose.
  • *
  • They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored' wherever they were permitted to ' explore , paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

    Synonyms

    * (examine or investigate systematically) delve into, research

    Derived terms

    * explorer

    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