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Teach vs Explain - What's the difference?

teach | explain | Related terms |

As verbs the difference between teach and explain

is that teach is to show (someone) the way; to guide, conduct while explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

As a noun teach

is teacher.

As a proper noun Teach

is nickname for a teacher.

teach

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) techen, from (etyl) . More at (l).

Verb

  • To show (someone) the way; to guide, conduct.
  • * :
  • So thus within a whyle as they thus talked the nyghte passed / and the daye shone / and thenne syre launcelot armed hym / and took his hors / and they taught hym to the Abbaye and thyder he rode within the space of two owrys
  • (label) To pass on knowledge to.
  • (label) To pass on knowledge, especially as one's profession; to act as a teacher.
  • (label) To cause to learn or understand.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author= Rob Dorit
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Making Life from Scratch , passage=Deep Blue taught' us a great deal about the power of the human mind precisely because it could not reproduce the intuitive and logical leaps of Kasparov’s mind. A truly synthetic cell, built from scratch or even from preexisting components, will be a cell without ancestry, and it, too, will ' teach us a great deal about the underlying complexities of life without actually reproducing them.}}
    Synonyms
    * (sense) educate, instruct
    Antonyms
    * (sense) learn
    Derived terms
    * * teacher * teaching

    Etymology 2

    (probably clipping)

    Noun

    (es)
  • (pejorative) teacher
  • 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