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.

Understanding vs Explaining - What's the difference?

understanding | explaining |

As nouns the difference between understanding and explaining

is that understanding is mental, sometimes emotional process of comprehension, assimilation of knowledge, which is subjective by its nature while explaining is explanation.

As verbs the difference between understanding and explaining

is that understanding is present participle of lang=en while explaining is present participle of lang=en.

As an adjective understanding

is showing compassion.

understanding

English

(wikipedia understanding)

Noun

  • (uncountable) Mental, sometimes emotional process of comprehension, assimilation of knowledge, which is subjective by its nature.
  • (countable) Reason or intelligence, ability to grasp the full meaning of knowledge, ability to infer.
  • (countable) Opinion, judgement or outlook.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.}}
  • (countable) An informal contract, mutual agreement.
  • (countable) A reconciliation of differences.
  • (uncountable) Sympathy.
  • All that people individually sense and feel of themselves.

    • See also

    * intellection

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Showing compassion.

    • Verb

    (head)
  • * {{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]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.}}

    explaining

    English

    Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • explanation
    • You've got some explaining to do!
  • * 1973 , Abraham Kaplan, The conduct of inquiry (page 327)
    • Among these various explainings there is one set which it is comparatively easy to distinguish. I call it semantic explanation: making clear a meaning.