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

(pronounc)

To formally declare, officially or ceremoniously.

* , chapter=5

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced . The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.}}

To pass judgment.

To sound out (a word or phrase); to articulate.

* 1869 , (Mark Twain), The Innocents Abroad , page 182:

They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce' it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they ' pronounce .

*

To produce the components of speech.

To declare authoritatively, or as a formal expert opinion.

To read aloud.