EXPLAIN AWAY Definition & Meaning

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explain away

verb

tr, adverb to offer excuses or reasons for (bad conduct, mistakes, etc)

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Idioms and Phrases

Dismiss or minimize the importance of something, especially something detrimental. For example, “His words were taken down, and though he tried to explain them away, he was sent to the Tower” (Thomas Macaulay, The History of England , 1855). [c. 1700]

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Example Sentences

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Conway isn't alone in trying to explain away the impacts of Trump's tariffs on the conservative news network.

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Because we, especially in families and with loved ones, explain away bad, disrespectful and abusive behavior.

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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Farage had "chosen to explain away Trump's outrageous remarks about President Zelensky instead of doing the right thing and condemning them".

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She has spent more than 30 years in child protection and adult safeguarding, and believes that people’s readiness to forgive or explain away what happened is one of the main reasons that abuse “gets swept under the carpet”.

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Reflecting on McDonald's statement, she said: "What the party did yesterday was try to excuse and explain away its behaviour."

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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