Word of the Day

Monday, February 12, 2001

explicate

\EK-spluh-kayt\ , transitive verb;

To explain; to clear of difficulties or obscurity.

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Quotes:

I can cite a case -- my own -- of a young person's being altered politically by a novel, but I cannot explicate the process, let alone explain it in terms of the author's intention or literary strategies.

-- Mary McCarthy, "The Lasting Power of the Political Novel", New York Times, January 1, 1984

The French baccalaureate exam asked students to explicate a passage from Kant.

-- Cullen Murphy, "Common Stock", The Atlantic, February 2001

Origin:

Explicate comes from Latin explicare, "to unfold; to unfold the meaning or sense of; to explain, expound, or interpret," from ex-, "out" + plicare, "to fold."