Word.ws English Dictionary

-splained

-splained is the simple past and past participle of -splain.

Meaning of -splain

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

Questions about -splained

What is -splained the simple past and past participle of?
-splained is the simple past and past participle of -splain.

Words near -splained in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -splained (page history and authors); -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.

Last updated:

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