Verb

(en verb)

To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

*

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 .

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03

, author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106 , magazine=(American Scientist) , title= 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.}}

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= 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; […].}}

(obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.

(obsolete) To unfold or make visible.

* (John Evelyn) (1620-1706)

The horse-chestnut isready to explain its leaf.

Verb

To communicate with one's voice, to say words out loud.

* , chapter=13

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them.}}

To have a conversation.

(by extension) To communicate or converse by some means other than orally, such as writing or facial expressions.

To deliver a message to a group; to deliver a speech.

To be able to communicate in a language.

To utter.

* 1611 , (Authorized King James Version) (Bible translation), 9:5:

And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby-Dick) :

There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.

(informal, transitive, sometimes, humorous) To understand (as though it were a language).

To produce a sound; to sound.

* Shakespeare

Make all our trumpets speak .

(archaic) To address; to accost; to speak to.

* Bible, Ecclus. xiii. 6

[He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.

* Emerson

Each village senior paused to scan / And speak the lovely caravan.