Word.ws English Dictionary

retain and explain

retain and explain verb: to preserve historical material regarded as problematic (such as statues), with appropriate contextual explanation, rather than destroying it or attempting to erase it from history.

Verb

retain and explain (third-person singular simple present retains and explains, present participle retaining and explaining, simple past and past participle retained and explained)

  1. (policy) To preserve historical material regarded as problematic (such as statues), with appropriate contextual explanation, rather than destroying it or attempting to erase it from history.
    • [W]e have opted in this book to use the word catechesis rather than substitute something in its place. Our strategy is to retain and explain, rather than to reject and replace.2010, J. I. Packer, Gary A. Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, page 31
    • The Roosevelt Memorial contest is parallel in time but also distinctly different from the 'retain and explain' position of the Conservative UK government regarding British colonialist monuments.2022, Kevin Coffee, Museums and Social Responsibility

Forms of retain and explain

third-person singular presentretains and explains
present participleretaining and explaining
past participleretained and explained
pastretained and explained

Questions about retain and explain

What does retain and explain mean?
Retain and explain means to preserve historical material regarded as problematic (such as statues), with appropriate contextual explanation, rather than destroying it or attempting to erase it from history.
What part of speech is retain and explain?
Retain and explain is a verb.
What is the past tense of retain and explain?
The past tense of retain and explain is retained and explained.

Words near retain and explain in the dictionary

  1. retailoring
  2. retailors
  3. retails
  4. retailtainment
  5. retain
  6. retain and explain
  7. retainability
  8. retainable
  9. retainably
  10. retainage
  11. retainages

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retain and explain (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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