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Recognise vs Explain - What's the difference?

recognise | explain |

As verbs the difference between recognise and explain

is that recognise is to match something or someone which one currently perceives to a memory of some previous encounter with the same entity while explain is to make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.

recognise

English

Alternative forms

* recognize (US )

Verb

(recognis)
  • To match something or someone which one currently perceives to a memory of some previous encounter with the same entity.
  • To acknowledge the existence or legality of something; treat as worthy of consideration or valid.
  • To acknowledge or consider as something.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
  • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, and so we entered stage three – what therapists call "bargaining". A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.}}
  • To realise or discover the nature of something; apprehend quality in; realise or admit that.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1913, author=
  • , title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad, chapter=4 citation , passage=“[…] That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. […]”}}
  • To give an award.
  • Anagrams

    *

    explain

    English

    (Explanation)

    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.

    Synonyms

    * (give a sufficiently detailed report) expound, elaborate