ACCOUNT FOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does account for mean? 

• ACCOUNT FOR (verb)
  The verb ACCOUNT FOR has 2 senses:

1. be the reason or explanation for

2. give reasons for

  Familiarity information: ACCOUNT FOR used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ACCOUNT FOR (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be the reason or explanation for

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Context example:

The recession accounts for the slow retail business

Hypernyms (to "account for" is one way to...):

be (have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun))

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Give reasons for

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

Can you account for all these absences?

Hypernyms (to "account for" is one way to...):

explain; explicate (make plain and comprehensible)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

Eating about 60 grams of beans would account for 50 percent of that, McDonough said.

(Study: Fruits and Vegetables Can Lower Blood Pressure, VOA)

The new findings show that if not for the anaerobic methane oxidation process, freshwater environments would account for an even greater portion of the global methane budget.

(Methane-eating microorganisms help regulate emissions from wetlands, NSF)

Notably, differences in weight loss, which affects type 2 diabetes risk, didn’t account for these risk differences.

(Breastfeeding may help prevent type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes, NIH)

Other phenomena, however, could also account for these tantalising features.

(ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets around Newborn Star, ESO)

These two hypotheses, it has been argued, account for the movement of stars in galaxies and for the accelerating expansion of the universe respectively.

(There May Be No Dark Matter, Dark Energy in Universe, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The study did not look at the effect of alcohol consumption over the life-course or account for people who may have reduced their consumption due to health complications.

(Drinking more than five pints a week could shorten your life, University of Cambridge)

Seasonal influenza viruses account for about 650,000 deaths per year, whereas pandemic strains such as the 1918 H1N1 pandemic virus have been linked to 50-100 million deaths worldwide.

('Significant breakthrough' in understanding the deadly nature of pandemic influenza, University of Cambridge )

On Mercury, permanently shadowed regions account for roughly the same fraction of the northern hemisphere.

(Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate, NASA)

The investigators note that, as a group, these SNPs only account for a very small portion (0.43 percent) of the variation across individuals in the sample; individually, each SNP has a very small influence.

(Researchers identify genetic links to educational attainment, NIH)

The stars in the galaxy can account for all the mass, and there doesn't seem to be any room for dark matter.

(Dark Matter Goes Missing in Oddball Galaxy, NASA)