In her memoir, Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included a chapter on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Understanding the Context

But she failed to ... explain, expound, explicate, elucidate, interpret mean to make something clear or understandable. explain implies a making plain or intelligible what is not immediately obvious or entirely known. EXPLAIN definition: 1.

Key Insights

to make something clear or easy to understand by describing or giving information about it: 2…. Learn more. EXPLAIN definition: to make plain or clear; render understandable or intelligible. See examples of explain used in a sentence. Find 123 different ways to say EXPLAIN, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.

Final Thoughts

To explain is to make plain, clear, or intelligible something that is not known or understood: to explain a theory or a problem. To elucidate is to throw light on what before was dark and obscure, usually by illustration and commentary and sometimes by elaborate explanation: They asked him to elucidate his statement. Definition of explain verb in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. Synonyms: explain, elucidate, explicate, interpret, construe These verbs mean to make the nature or meaning of something understandable. Explain is the most widely applicable: The professor used a diagram to explain the theory of continental drift.

The manual explained how the new software worked.