elaboration

[ ih-lab-uh-rey-shuhn ]

noun

1. an act or instance of elaborating.
2. the state of being elaborated; elaborateness.
3. something that is elaborated.
4. Psychiatry. an unconscious process of expanding and embellishing a detail, especially while recalling and describing a representation in a dream so that latent content of the dream is brought into a logical and comprehensible order.

Other Words From

• self-e·labo·ration noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of elaboration¹

First recorded in 1570–80; from Latin ēlabōrātiōn-, stem of ēlabōrātiō, from ēlabōrāt(us) “worked out” (past participle of ēlabōrāre “to work out, produce through labor”; elaborate ) + -iō -ion

Example Sentences

Key to Douglass’s speech was his elaboration of exactly how the Constitution enabled a President to thwart democracy.

From Time

The FBI said without elaboration that it also recovered a document titled “Making Plastic Explosives from Bleach,” redacting the instructions in a photo exhibit.

From Washington Post

Elaboration helps you combine new information with other things you know.

From Science News For Students

Lack of elaboration is a virus that continually infects the book, sometimes having a sickening effect on the reader.

From The Daily Beast

It is neither the time nor the place to ask for elaboration.

From The Daily Beast

These first two cases appear mainly as preamble, summarized without much elaboration.

From The Daily Beast

Perhaps, he says without elaboration, "their recollections may be imperfect."

From The Daily Beast

“The conspiracy laws are broad,” the official said without elaboration.

From The Daily Beast

These changes take place slowly at first, and more rapidly as the organs fitted for the elaboration of its food are developed.

From Project Gutenberg

He was slow and fastidious in composition, and the poem suffered from over-elaboration.

From Project Gutenberg

The book pretended to be an elaboration of Dumarsais' essay on the Philosophe published in the Nouvelles liberts de penser, 1750.

From Project Gutenberg

Like Beowulf it is elaborate, but it is the elaboration of art rather than of feeling.

From Project Gutenberg

All this elaboration of elegance had fitting surroundings, and the case was worthy of its contents.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• amplification