Word.ws English Dictionary

-splains

-splains is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 -splains

What is -splains the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
-splains is the third-person singular simple present indicative of -splain.

Words near -splains in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -splains (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.

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