explication
Americannoun
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explications
plural
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the act of explicating.
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an explanation; interpretation.
He gave a brilliant explication of James Joyce's book.
noun
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the act or process of explicating
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analysis or interpretation, esp of a literary passage or work or philosophical doctrine
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a comprehensive exposition or description
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of explication
1520–30; < Middle French < Latin explicātiōn- (stem of explicātiō ). See explicate, -ion
Explanation
Explication is the process of making something clearer. When you carefully explain your performance art piece to your mystified parents, you can describe what you're doing as an explication. The noun explication is closely related to "explicit," which essentially means "crystal clear." Both words come from the Latin explicitus, "unobstructed," which itself is a variant of explicare, "unfold or unravel." A good explication unravels any doubt or confusion and results in a crystal clear understanding, whether the explication involves performance art, the plot of a novel, or the complicated route to your grandmother's house.
Vocabulary lists containing explication
Challenge, List 9
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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Love's Labour's Lost
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Kris is also a bit of a nervous wreck, though the character is scripted with an unfortunate mix of pedestrian mumbliness and tin-eared therapeutic explication that Ms. Einbinder struggles to transcend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
If this, one of the best and truest Ojai festivals in recent years, is meant not for explication but discovery, please do so.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2025
Estados Unidos Mexicanos thwart case-by-case determination of PLCAA’s applicability, a process that promotes careful explication of the law.
From Slate ● Jun. 6, 2025
More extensive explication is available via the reliable "Star Wars" online encyclopedia of your choice.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2023
There Oppenheimer delivered an impressively detailed explication of atomic bomb physics, along with his own rough estimate that 100 kilograms of U-235—that is, 220 pounds—would be enough for a practical device.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Throughout the day, staffers would be summoned to his office for long, analytical explications.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 27, 2020
Unnecessary words take up space at the expense of apt explications.
From Nature ● Jun. 11, 2019
With the modern history of hoarding, we are now getting the modern, or actually postmodern, explications.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 8, 2014
I find Burt’s lucid, insightful explications of poems energizing: they make you want to discover more of that poet’s work.
From New York Times ● Sep. 16, 2012
Even at that moment, in one illuminating flash, Lady St. Craye saw the explications that must follow the announcement of that renunciatory decision.
From The Incomplete Amorist by E. (Edith) Nesbit
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
