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

(lb) To perceive the truth or factuality of; to be certain of or that.

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(lb) To be aware of; to be cognizant of.

:

*, chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew , made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

(lb) To be acquainted or familiar with; to have encountered.

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(lb) To experience.

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*1991 , Irvin Haas, Historic Homes of the American Presidents , p.155:

*:The Truman family knew good times and bad,.

(lb) To distinguish, to discern, particularly by contrast or comparison; to recognize the nature of.

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*(Bible)'', ''(w) 7.16 :

*:Ye shall know them by their fruits.

*

*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

*1980 , Armored and mechanized brigade operations , p.3−29:

*:Flares do not know friend from foe and so illuminate both. Changes in wind direction can result in flare exposure of the attacker while defenders hide in the shadows.

(lb) To recognize as the same (as someone or something previously encountered) after an absence or change.

* (Thomas Flatman), Translation of Part of (Petronius) Arbiter's (Satyricon)

*:At nearer view he thought he knew the dead, / And call'd the wretched man to mind.

*1818 , (w), (Frankenstein) :

*:Ernest also is so much improved, that you would hardly know him:.

To understand from experience or study.

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(lb) To understand (a subject).

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*

To have sexual relations with.

*, (w) 4.1:

*:And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

(lb) To have knowledge; to have information, be informed.

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*

*:“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

*

(lb) To be or become aware or cognizant.

:

To be acquainted (with another person).

*1607 , (William Shakespeare), (Antony and Cleopatra) , :

*:You and I have known , sir.