explanatoryadj.n.

1600 W. Fulbecke Direct. Study Lawe viii. f. 62 I doe not meane wordes of Arte onely, which by Lexicons and explanatorie bookes may easily be conceiued.

1619 E. M. Bolton in tr. Florus Rom. Hist. To Rdr. 2 The words..here and there inserted in a different letter..are for the most part explanatorie of the authors meaning.

1693 R. South Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Bk. vii. 216 These I affirm to be the direct unavoidable Consequences of those two short Paragraphs..which he makes his Third and Fourth Explanatory Steps.

1753 W. Hogarth Anal. Beauty 1 A short essay, accompanied with two explanatory prints.

1796 S. Jones (title) Sheridan improved. A general pronouncing and explanatory dictionary of the English language.

1816 Philos. Mag. 47 9 Homo's reading thus affords time for the deposition of the primitive rocks..but there its explanatory power expires.

1856 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) II. ix. 326 To guard against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn up by the government.

1904 J. Conrad Nostromo ii. iii You should see the explanatory and confidential letter! Eight pages of it—no less!

1942 Billboard 25 Apr. 65/2 The first explanatory order of coin machine manufactures, clarifying inventory rules and also the making of repair parts, was issued on April. 13.

1989 A. Storr Freud iii. 28 The general outline stands as powerfully explanatory of a variety of sexual difficulties.

2008 Conceive Mag. Spring 53 An explanatory note on our ranking system.

1694 J. Beaumont Postscr. Considerations Burnet's Theory of Earth 4 And why must it be expected that I should be more explanatory concerning this Pipe than Virgil?

1743 H. Walpole Let. 17 Nov. in Lett. to H. Mann (1833) I. 330 I find you still overwhelmed with Richcourt's folly and the Admiral's explanatory ignorance.

1756 S. Foote Englishman return'd from Paris i. 11 The Law is an oracular Idol, you are..explanatory Ministers.

1846 C. Dickens Dombey & Son (1848) vi. 59 He rendered himself as explanatory as he could.

1876 A. Trollope Prime Minister III. xii. 204 In such a position is it likely that I shall explain anything—that I can be in a humour to be explanatory?

1883 R. A. Proctor in Knowledge 7 Sept. 156/1 I feel tempted to lay down in despair the explanatory pen.

1923 Catholic Educ. Assoc. Bull. Aug. 189 She may go about the task with the best will in the world, still she remains forever and ever ‘a dull explanatory person who never knows when to stop her tiresome expounding’.

2011 C. Bingham in M. Simons & J. Masschelein Rancière, Public Educ. & Taming Democracy x. 148 Above all, the researcher must avoid the explanatory master's favorite question. Do you understand?

1650 Exercitation conc. Usurped Powers 49 This may be the best explanatorie of that.

1913 W. de Morgan Let. 12 July in A. M. W. Stirling William de Morgan & his Wife (1922) xiv. 344 I want them as explanatories in the tag-end chapter.

1988 Independent 1 Aug. 6/4 He also wants to add an ‘Explanatory’, which would offer short courses in science.

2004 S. D. Hoffert Jane Grey Swisshelm 201 By reading her letters, editorial columns, and ‘Explanatories’, it is possible to find out what she thought about the social, economic, and political issues of the day.

1639 W. Balcanquhall Large Declar. Tumults Scotl. 347 We dehorted them upon that reason from that subscription: which was the true cause why the Councell being convinced with that reason, made their explanatory act.

1672 in O. Airy Essex Papers (1890) I. 1 Y^e seaven yeers granted for it, in y^e Explanatory Act, are neere Expired.

1747 Magistracy Settled (Reformed Presbyterian Church) 18 The explanatory Act of the Supremacy, by which they declare the ecclesiastick Supremacy to be an essential of the Crown.

1858 Jrnl. Soc. Arts 25 June 492/1 It was carefully pointed out that all that was asked was, not a new law involving a new principle, but an explanatory Act, to render available existing enactments, which, by a strict literal interpretation of the Courts of Law, were rendered all but useless.

1915 Amer. Hist. Rev. 20 779 In 1762 the same assembly passed an explanatory act, making such importation a felony and punishable with death without benefit of clergy.

2003 M. J. Connolly Capitalism, Politics & Railroads in Jacksonian New Eng. i. 31 An ‘Explanatory Act’ was passed by a 133–91 vote in the House just before Christmas 1840, exempting the Concord Railroad from the June bill.

1939 J. Tinbergen Statist. Testing Business-cycle Theories II. 10 If..economic reasoning suggests that the fluctuations in variable v (investment activity) depend on fluctuations in the ‘explanatory’ variables Z (profits), q (price of investment goods), m (interest rate) and l (wage rate).

1960 P. B. Kenen Brit. Monetary Policy & Balance Payments App. B. 277 The ‘unexplained’ changes..did not correlate well with either of the explanatory variables, prices or employment.

2002 L. Gold Good Hospital Guide 480 Regression analyses were carried out using the HSMR as the dependent variable and a measure of social deprivation..as the explanatory variable, along with several other possible explanatory variables.

1727 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. II Explanatoriness, explicative Quality.

1849 A. M. Bell New Elucidation Princ. Speech & Elocution iv. 242 There is a Vocal Logic; a Rhetoric of Inflexion; a Poetry of Modulation; a Commentator's explanatoriness of Tone, and these are combined, in effective reading.

1976 L. Wright Teleological Explanations ii. 61 There is a very close relationship between cause and explanatoriness: to give a cause is to give an explanation.

2006 Linguistics & Philos. 29 335 We think the elegance and explanatoriness of Kehler's theory would be severely restricted by making such assumptions.