Word.ws English Dictionary

-splain

-splain suffix: a suffix combined with a descriptive adjective or noun to create a verb meaning someone who fits that description condescendingly explaining something to someone who does not fit that description (especially, something the listener has more experience of).

Suffix

-splain (verb-forming suffix, third-person singular simple present -splains, present participle -splaining, simple past and past participle -splained)

  1. (slang) A suffix combined with a descriptive adjective or noun to create a verb meaning someone who fits that description condescendingly explaining something to someone who does not fit that description (especially, something the listener has more experience of).
    • So please, don’t ablesplain to me. Especially when you have no idea about the context of what bigotry you’re trying to justify.2012 December 22, Bunnika, “For reblogging: No crip has to be nice to ableists”, in Cumulative notes for the Zōon Politikon, retrieved 27 Apr 2014
    • You see, thinsplains Callahan, because nothing else seems to be working, we must turn to making obese people feel bad about themselves in order to shed the pounds.2013 January 15, Dan O'Connor, “Dan Callahan Thinsplains Obesity”, in Berman Institute Bioethics Bulletin, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2014, retrieved 28 Apr 2013

Forms of -splain

third-person singular present-splains
present participle-splaining
past participle-splained
past-splained

Origin of -splain

From splain, itself from explain, following the pattern of mansplain.

Questions about -splain

What does -splain mean?
-splain means a suffix combined with a descriptive adjective or noun to create a verb meaning someone who fits that description condescendingly explaining something to someone who does not fit that description (especially, something the listener has more experience of).
What part of speech is -splain?
-splain is a suffix.

Words near -splain in the dictionary

  1. -spermic
  2. -spermous
  3. -sphere
  4. -spheres
  5. -spirone
  6. -splain
  7. -splained
  8. -splaining
  9. -splains
  10. -sploitation
  11. -spo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -splain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “-splain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-splain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.