Explain vs Direct - What's the difference?
explain | direct | Related terms |
To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
*
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
, author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106
, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= To give a valid excuse for some past behavior.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
(obsolete) To unfold or make visible.
* (John Evelyn) (1620-1706)
Straight, constant, without interruption.
Straight; not crooked, oblique, or circuitous; leading by the short or shortest way to a point or end.
Straightforward; sincere.
* Shakespeare
Immediate; express; plain; unambiguous.
* John Locke
* Hallam
In the line of descent; not collateral.
(astronomy) In the direction of the general planetary motion, or from west to east; in the order of the signs; not retrograde; said of the motion of a celestial body.
Directly.
* 2009 , Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall , Fourth Estate 2010, p. 346:
To manage, control, steer.
To aim (something) at (something else).
To point out or show to (somebody) the right course or way; to guide, as by pointing out the way.
* Lubbock
To point out to with authority; to instruct as a superior; to order.
* Shakespeare
(dated) To put a direction or address upon; to mark with the name and residence of the person to whom anything is sent.
Explain is a related term of direct.
As verbs the difference between explain and direct
is that explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of while direct is to manage, control, steer.As an adjective direct is
straight, constant, without interruption.As an adverb direct is
directly.explain
English
(Explanation)Verb
(en verb)- The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits. He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. Nobody would miss them, he explained .
Pixels or Perish, passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}
Fantasy of navigation, passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
- The horse-chestnut isready to explain its leaf.
Synonyms
* (give a sufficiently detailed report) expound, elaboratedirect
English
Adjective
(er)- the most direct route between two buildings
- Be even and direct with me.
- He nowhere, that I know, says it in direct words.
- a direct and avowed interference with elections
- a descendant in the direct line
Antonyms
* indirectDerived terms
* direct action * direct current * direct flight * direct initiative * direct object * direct quoteAdverb
(en adverb)- Presumably Mary is to carry messages that she, Anne, is too delicate to convey direct .
Verb
(en verb)- to direct the affairs of a nation or the movements of an army
- They directed their fire towards the men on the wall.
- He directed his question to the room in general.
- He directed me to the left-hand road.
- the next points to which I will direct your attention
- She directed them to leave immediately.
- I'll first direct my men what they shall do.
- to direct a letter