Word.ws English Dictionary

explained away

explained away is the simple past and past participle of explain away.

Meaning of explain away

Verb

explain away (third-person singular simple present explains away, present participle explaining away, simple past and past participle explained away)

  1. (transitive) To dismiss or minimize (a problem, etc.) by explanation.
    • He couldn't just explain away all of his problems.

Questions about explained away

What is explained away the simple past and past participle of?
Explained away is the simple past and past participle of explain away.

Words near explained away in the dictionary

  1. explainability
  2. explainable
  3. explaination
  4. explainations
  5. explained
  6. explained away
  7. explainee
  8. explainees
  9. explainer
  10. explainers
  11. explainest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: explained away (page history and authors); explain away (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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