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To lay open; to expose to view; to examine. [Obs.] He expounded both his pockets. Hudibras.

One who expounds or explains; an interpreter.

To expound erroneously.

e precise signification of; to fix the meaning of; to describe accurately; to explain; to expound or interpret; as, to define a word, a phrase, or a scientific term. They define virtue to be life ordered according to nature. Robynson (More's Utopia).

The canto, cantus, or soprano voice; the treble. Grove. Twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, as children make descant upon plain song. Tyndale. She [the nightingale] all night long her amorous descant sung. Milton.

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.…

One who explains; an expounder or expositor; a commentator; an interpreter.

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.

One who unfolds or explains; an expounder; an explainer.

To expound; to explain; also, to expose; to imperil. [Old Eng. & Scotch] Drummond.

The act of expounding or of laying open the sense or meaning of an author, or a passage; explanation; interpretation; the sense put upon a passage; a law, or the like, by an interpreter; hence, a work containing explanations or interpretations; a commentary. You know the law; your exposition Hath been most sound. Shak.…

One who, or that which, expounds or explains; an expounder; a commentator. Bp. Horsley.

ining to interpretation; exegetical; explanatory; as, hermeneutic theology, or the art of expounding the Scriptures; a hermeneutic phrase.

An interjection implies a meaning which it would require a whole grammatical sentence to expound, and it may be regarded as the rudiment of such a sentence. But it is a confusion of thought to rank it among the parts of speech. Earle. How now! interjections Why, then, some be of laughing, as, ah, ha, he! Shak.…

To explain or tell the meaning of; to expound; to translate orally into intelligible or familiar language or terms; to decipher; to define; -- applied esp. to language, but also to dreams, signs, conduct, mysteries, etc.; as, to interpret the Hebrew language to an Englishman; to interpret an Indian speech. Emmanuel, wh…

One who or that which interprets, explains, or expounds; a translator; especially, a person who translates orally between two parties. We think most men's actions to be the interpreters of their thoughts. Locke.

A writing; an inscription. [Obs.] None could expound what this letter meant. Chaucer.

An official expounder of Mohammedan law.

Lamarckism as revived, modified, and expounded by recent biologists, esp. as maintaining that the offspring inherits characters acquired by the parent from change of environment, use or disuse of parts, etc.; -- opposed of Neo-Darwinism (which see, above). -- Ne`o-La*marck"i*an, a. & n.

osophy, the philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton; -- applied to the doctrine of the universe as expounded in Newton's "Principia," to the modern or experimental philosophy (as opposed to the theories of Descartes and others), and, most frequently, to the mathematical theory of universal gravitation. -- Newtonian telescope (…