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Obvious vs Elucidate - What's the difference?

obvious | elucidate |

As an adjective obvious

is easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.

As a verb elucidate is

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

obvious

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.
  • *
  • *:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-17, volume=408, issue=8849, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Down towns , passage=It is not obvious , to economists anyway, that cities should exist at all. Crowds of people mean congestion and costly land and labour. But there are also well-known advantages to bunching up. When transport costs are sufficiently high a firm can spend more money shipping goods to clusters of consumers than it saves on cheap land and labour.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also .

    Antonyms

    * unobvious * non-obvious * subtle

    Derived terms

    * obviously * obviousness

    See also

    * plain * clear * evident * manifest

    elucidate

    English

    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.

    Synonyms

    * explicate, illuminate

    Derived terms

    * elucidation * elucidative * elucidator * elucidatory