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 Word Forms

• self-elaboration 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

Related Words

• amplification