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A word or expression admitting of a double interpretation, one of which is often obscure or indelicate.

Not bright or clear to the eye; wanting in liveliness of color or luster; not vivid; obscure; dim; as, a dull fire or lamp; a dull red or yellow; a dull mirror.

Imperfect obscurity; a middle degree between light and darkness; twilight; as, the dusk of the evening.

To make dusk or obscure. [R.] Not utterly defaced, but only duskened. Nicolls.

Partially dark or obscure; not luminous; dusk; as, a dusky valley. Through dusky lane and wrangling mart. Keble.

To make clear; to clear up what is obscure or not understood; to explain.

The clearing up of anything which is obscure or not easily understood; an explanation. The eclaircissement ended in the discovery of the informer. Clarendon.

An interception or obscuration of the light of the sun, moon, or other luminous body, by the intervention of some other body, either between it and the eye, or between the luminous body and that illuminated by it. A lunar eclipse is caused by the moon passing through the earth's shadow; a solar eclipse, by the moon com…

power of discerning relations and of viewing objects by means of, or in, relations; the discursive faculty; thought.

he ocean; the sun emerges from behind the moon in an eclipse; to emerge from poverty or obscurity. "Thetis . . . emerging from the deep." Dryden. Those who have emerged from very low, some from the lowest, classes of society. Burke.

act of emerging, or of rising out of anything; as, emersion from the sea; emersion from obscurity or difficulties. Their immersion into water and their emersion out of the same. Knatchbull.

A dark, obscure, or inexplicable saying; a riddle; a statement, the hidden meaning of which is to be discovered or guessed. A custom was among the ancients of proposing an enigma at festivals. Pope.

ng to or resembling an enigma; not easily explained or accounted for; darkly expressed; obscure; puzzling; as, an enigmatical answer.

Darkly; obscurely.

To clear from mist, clouds, or obscurity. [R.] Bailey.

See Escurial.

To 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.…

The act of explaining, expounding, or interpreting; the act of clearing from obscurity and making intelligible; as, the explanation of a passage in Scripture, or of a contract or treaty.

To unfold the meaning or sense of; to explain; to clear of difficulties or obscurity; to interpret. The last verse of his last satire is not yet sufficiently explicated. Dryden.

mplication; distinctly stated; plain in language; open to the understanding; clear; not obscure or ambiguous; express; unequivocal; as, an explicit declaration. The language of the charter was too explicit to admit of a doubt. Bancroft.