explain away

English

Verb

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

1. To dismiss or minimize (a problem, etc.) by explanation.

   He couldn't just explain away all of his problems.

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 44:

     “I have heard it all. And how you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess is beyond my comprehension.”

   • 2023 October 18, Murtada Elfadl, “Killers Of The Flower Moon review: Martin Scorsese's uniquely American tragedy”, in AV Club‎^[1]:

     De Niro veers dangerously close to caricature—making chirpy noises, always tilting his head, adding dashes of comedy—yet he ends up personifying evil while never sanding off the edges of this horrible man or trying to explain away his misdeeds with a humanist approach.

Related terms

• explain
• explanation
• explanatory

Translations

to dismiss or minimize by explanation

• Russian: отделываться (ru) (otdelyvatʹsja), оправдываться (ru) (opravdyvatʹsja)
• Swedish: bortförklara (sv)

See also

• nothing-buttery