clarify
Formsclarifies, clarifying, clarified
- 1To make or become clear and easily understood; to explain or resolve something in order to remove doubt or confusion.
Lawmakers asked the agency to clarify its reporting requirements before the deadline.
The spokesperson clarified that the ban applies only to new construction.
Similarexplain, elucidate, illuminate, specify, define
Oppositeconfuse, obscure, muddle, complicate
Note
The figurative extension of the literal "make a liquid clear" meaning: what clears murky wine now clears a murky point. Robert South's Twelve Sermons (1692–1717) already speaks of clarifying the reason itself. Today the verb most often takes a clause, as in clarify that… or clarify what you mean. Like the literal sense, it can also run without an object: a situation clarifies over time.
- 2To make or become clear or bright by freeing a liquid, such as wine or syrup, from impurities or cloudiness.
Winemakers clarify young wine by adding a fining agent that pulls stray particles to the bottom of the tank.
The syrup clarified as it cooled and the cloudiness settled out.
Similarpurify, filter, refine, clear
Note
The literal sense the others grow from: Latin clārificāre, built from clārus "clear" and facere "make," so to clarify is, at root, to make clear. The verb works in both directions without changing form. A cook clarifies cooking oil, with the liquid as object, while wine left to stand for a day will clarify on its own, with the liquid as subject.
- 3To give glory to; to praise or exalt someone, especially in worship.
Note
An obsolete meaning that pushes the Latin "make clear" behind the literal sense toward splendor: to make someone bright is to glorify them. Read it as glorify when it turns up in older writing. In modern prose it would only be misread as "explain," so glorify itself is the word to use.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English clarifien, via Old French clarifiier, from Latin clārificāre, formed from clārus ('clear') and facere ('make'), literally 'to make clear'.