different between interject vs explain

English

Etymology

From Latin interiectus, perfect passive participle of interici? (“place between”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?n.t??d??kt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?n.t??d??kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt

Verb

interject (third-person singular simple present interjects, present participle interjecting, simple past and past participle interjected)

1. (transitive) To insert something between other things.
2. (transitive) To say as an interruption or aside.
   • 1791, James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, Volume I, pp. 474-475,^[1]

     He roared with prodigious violence against George the Second. When he ceased, Moody interjected, in an Irish tone, and with a comick look, “Ah! poor George the Second.”

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter 24,^[2]

     ‘Please, sir, Richard says one of the horses has got a very bad cold, and he thinks, sir, if you could make it convenient to go the day after to-morrow, instead of to-morrow, he could physic it to-day, so as—’

     ‘Confound his impudence!’ interjected the master.

   • 1934, Olaf Stapledon, “East is West” in Sam Moskowitz (ed.), Far Future Calling: Uncollected Science Fiction and Fantasies of Olaf Stapledon, 1979,^[3]

     As I listened I interjected an occasional sentence of Japanese translation for our guests.

   • 2000, Julian Barnes, “The Hardest Test: Drugs and the Tour de France” in The New Yorker, 21 August, 2000,^[4]

     Virenque, in a panicky mishearing, replied, “Me a dealer? No, I am not a dealer.” […] Whereupon Virenque’s lawyer interjected, “No, Richard, the judge said leader. It’s not an offense to be a leader.”

3. (intransitive) To interpose oneself; to intervene.

Synonyms

• (to insert between other things): insert
• (to interpose oneself): interpose, intervene

Related terms

• interjection

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English explanen, from Old French explaner, from Latin explan? (“I flatten, spread out, make plain or clear, explain”), from ex- (“out”) + plan? (“I flatten, make level”), from planus (“level, plain”); see plain and plane. Compare esplanade, splanade. Displaced Old English ?ere??an.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?sple?n/, /?k?sple?n/
• Rhymes: -e?n

Verb

explain (third-person singular simple present explains, present participle explaining, simple past and past participle explained)

1. To make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to illustrate the meaning of.
2. To give a valid excuse for past behavior.
3. (obsolete) To make flat, smooth out.
4. (obsolete) To unfold or make visible.
   • April 14, 1684, John Evelyn, a letter sent to the Royal Society concerning the damage done to his gardens by the preceding winter

     The horse-chestnut is […] ready to explain its leaf.

5. (intransitive) To make something plain or intelligible.

Synonyms

• (give a sufficiently detailed report): expound, elaborate, recce

Derived terms

• afore-explained
• explain away
• explainer
• mansplain
• please explain
• -splain

Related terms

• explanation
• explanatory

Translations

Further reading

• explain in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• explain in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• explain at OneLook Dictionary Search