English Dictionary

explain

/ɪkˈspleɪn/

verb

To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of. / To give a valid excuse for past behavior. / (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.

Can you explain the process to me?

意味（1）

To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

She is about to explain a chapter of the Bible to the Sunday School students.

意味（2）

To give a valid excuse for past behavior.

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; […].

意味（3）

(obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.

意味（4）

(obsolete) To unfold or make visible.

The horse-chestnut is […] ready to explain its leaf.

意味（5）

(intransitive) To make something plain or intelligible.

It is easy to modify the account to take this into account, by explaining not just in terms of a set of reasons but in terms of a set of reason–weight pairs.