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make plain, manifest, or intelligible; to clear of obscurity; to expound; to unfold and illustrate the meaning of; as, to explain a chapter of the Bible. Commentators to explain the difficult passages to you. Gay. To explain away, to get rid of by explanation. "Those explain the meaning quite "away." Pope.…

A style of painting, sculpture, or other imitative art, which illustrates everyday life and manners.

To accompany or illustrate with gesture or action; to gesticulate. It is not orderly read, nor gestured as beseemeth. Hooker.

To render clear and evident by comments; to illustrate; to explain; to annotate.

A story, anecdote, or legend in the Talmud, to explain or illustrate the text of the Old Testament. [Written also hadaga.]

laced together, a cavity from which the air can be withdrawn by an air pump; -- used to illustrate the pressure of the air. So called because invented by Otto von Guericke at Magdeburg.

ter-tight bellowslike case with a long, upright tube, into which water may be poured to illustrate the hydrostatic paradox. -- Hydrostatic paradox, the proposition in hydrostatics that any quantity of water, however small, may be made to counterbalance any weight, however great; or the law of the equality of pressure…

Tending to illuminate or illustrate; throwing light; illustrative. "Illuminative reading." Carlyle.

illustrating; the act of making clear and distinct; education; also, the state of being illustrated, or of being made clear and distinct.

Tending or designed to illustrate, exemplify, or elucidate.

One who illustrates.

Serving to illustrate.

A picture, example, or illustration, often taken from sensible objects, and used to illustrate a subject; usually, an extended metaphor. Brande & C.

A description of lichens; the science which illustrates the natural history of lichens.

One who illustrates any subject, or enlightens mankind; as, Newton was a distinguished luminary.

Arranged with regard to method; disposed in a suitable manner, or in a manner to illustrate a subject, or to facilitate practical observation; as, the methodical arrangement of arguments; a methodical treatise. "Methodical regularity." Addison.

ial "sleeping" positions or make curvatures under the influence of darkness. It is well illustrated in the leaflets of clover and other leguminous plants.

An apparatus which illustrates, by the revolution of balls moved by wheelwork, the relative size, periodic motions, positions, orbits, etc., of bodies in the solar system.

A cross formed of two strips of different metals, to illustrate the Peltier effect.

Theology or divinity illustrated or enforced by physics or natural philosophy.