1576 T. Newton tr. L. Lemnie Touchstone of Complexions i. ii. f. 19 Such as haue thinne spirites temperatelye hoate, haue sharpe and ready wittes.., and suche as for the explayning of their meaninges and purposes haue talke and tongue at will.

1577 J. Ludham tr. A. Hyperius Pract. Preaching ii. viii. f. 129^v For as many arguments as are handeled for the explaning of any question..it is greatly for the behoofe of the godly to knowe.

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) iii. sig. Ii4 This sonnet which might serue as an explaining to the other.

1656 H. Phillippes Purchasers Pattern (ed. 3) ii. 173 The Table is so plain it needs no explaining.

1721 R. Bradley Philos. Acct. Wks. Nature 110 No more than the unfolding and explaining of their Parts one after another.

1740 I. Watts Remnants of Time §21 I am quite tired..of these human explainings, so various and uncertain.

1783 T. Brice State-Coach in Mire iii. 18 Fox..swore he'd mount as locum-tenens, Till parties came to right explainings.

1813 Brit. Critic Sept. 242 A supernatural illumination in the explaining of Scripture.

1885 J. H. Ewing Story Short Life (1887) viii. 83 You can show, Father dear, and I'll do all the explaining.

1909 Pop. Sci. Monthly Dec. 608 It will aid greatly to clear up his own ideas—this explaining of things to others—and will help to keep him enthusiastic.

1955 Changing Times July 9/2 The best person to do the explaining might be the trust officer of the bank.

1992 Financial Times 11 Apr. 4/1 The pollsters woke up yesterday morning with some explaining to do.

2005 Atlanta Jan. 176/2 I'd rather leave the explaining to the professional explainers.

?1683 T. Crisp 2nd Pt. Babel's-builders Unmask't ii. 3 He takes no notice of the explaining words, but leaps over them.

1784 F. Plowden Investig. Native Rights Brit. Subj. 130 The explaining act and the act explained, make but one law.

1850 E. B. Browning Poems (new ed.) I. 261 Ere her last Explaining words were said.

1900 F. S. Turner Knowl., Belief & Certitude 236 Take the explaining words and examine them.

1970 S. Bellow Mr. Sammler's Planet 1/3 Intellectual man had become an explaining creature.

1993 Brit. Jrnl. Philos. Sci. 44 587 Ruben..requires that the conceptualization of the explaining fact be different from that of the fact to be explained.

1836 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 176/1 ‘Now, Sally’—and here he turned explainingly to where the mischievous little girl was standing with her hands in the pockets of her apron.

1889 Sat. Rev. 14 Dec. 684/2 ‘Black Prince—the name of my horse,’ she added explainingly.

1940 E. Hemingway For whom Bell Tolls xi. 132 He was not talking the pidgin Spanish now and he was looking into Robert Jordan's eyes calmly and explainingly; not searchingly nor suspiciously.

1994 H. Broadkey Profane Friendship 104 He didn't say it warmly. Or explainingly.