explicate
Americanverb (used with object)
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explicates,
present (3rd person singular)
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explicated,
past participle, past
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explicating
present participle
-
to make plain or clear; explain; interpret.
-
to develop (a principle, theory, etc.).
verb
-
to make clear or explicit; explain
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to formulate or develop (a theory, hypothesis, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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explicatornoun
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reexplicateverb (used with object)
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explicativeadjective
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unexplicatedadjective
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well-explicatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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explicatesimple
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explicatessimple
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have explicatedperfect
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has explicatedperfect
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am explicatingprogressive
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are explicatingprogressive
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is explicatingprogressive
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have been explicatingperfect progressive
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has been explicatingperfect progressive
Past
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explicatedsimple
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had explicatedperfect
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was explicatingprogressive
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were explicatingprogressive
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had been explicatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of explicate
1525–35; < Latin explicātus unfolded, set forth, past participle of explicāre, equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + plicāre to fold; see -ate 1
Explanation
To explicate is to explain or interpret something, maybe putting it in plain terms to make it more comprehensible for others. It might help to remember that it begins with "ex-," like the word explain, which is similar in meaning. The verb explicate comes from the Latin explicāre, which means "to unfold or unravel." This is a good description of a word that means to explain something to make it clearer and more easily understandable. Think of a puzzle or mystery: when you solve it, you sometimes have to explicate how you arrived at the solution, telling how you used the clues given to find the answer.
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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:
In his 1998 book “Paradise Lost,” Schrag sought not simply to foretell the region’s future, but to explicate how its future foretold what was in store for the country as a whole.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025
"But I do think it's fair to say the burden is on the firm to explicate and help develop appropriate guardrails to prevent nefarious uses."
From Science Daily ● May 2, 2024
She argued that a critic’s task was not to search for meaning, but to explicate the form and texture of a poem.
From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2024
Acosta then asked Dean to explicate what happens if Trump commits perjury, and whether he could be prosecuted for lying.
From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2023
This was a little unfortunate, the topic being one close to his lordship's heart and one he was inclined to explicate at some length.
From "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
No one understands, explicates and empathizes with mothers and daughters, love and pain, life and all it entails, quite like Ms. Hudes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
Each of the songs explicates a place and time of an incident or an idea in the lives of the protagonists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2024
On the Michelangelo side, “All Things Move” admirably explicates the art of the Sistine Chapel and the history of its moment.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2023
Yes, it provides a historical account of his time in office and explicates the policy objectives of his administration, from health care to economic recovery to climate change.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2020
And among many other things, he ingeniously explicates the two contrary Motions of the Sun, from East to West, and vice versa, by one onely Motion upon a Spiral, turning about a Cone.
From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Henry Oldenburg
The central frieze’s action is explicated by Latin captions and framed by upper and lower borders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
It’s never fully explicated in the screenplay, but Max’s mental health issues and possibly undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder are frequently alluded to, thrumming below the surface.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2024
Then there’s a cultural element, he explicated, of “bringing in my Japanese-Midwest heritage by using an ingredient like panko, filtering it through the Italian-American-ish culinary lens.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 7, 2024
“What really needs to be explicated is not the plain vanilla meaning of insurrection but the whole phrase - insurrection against the United States Constitution,” Delahunty testified on Friday.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 3, 2023
The Divine Substance, Immensity, Incomprehensibility, Invisibility, explicated, as far as our weak reason does teach.
From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Henry Oldenburg
Mr. Meslow does an excellent job explicating the ensuing tensions between ABC and the showrunners, which would ensure that the program was always a deeply flawed translation of its creators’ vision.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
But to physicists bent on explicating those fundamental laws, black holes are a Coney Island of mysteries and imagination.
From New York Times ● Oct. 10, 2022
“I think all the body cameras are going to be key in explicating exactly what was said and what was done.”
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2020
You can help guide your three-man vessel by expressing your appreciatio, and explicating exactly how meaningful to you this time spent together is.
From Slate ● Aug. 12, 2019
Mendeleeff gave the discovery fullest expression, explicating it in 1869, under the title of "the periodic law."
From A History of Science — Volume 4 by Henry Smith Williams
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