EXPLANATORY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does explanatory mean? 

• EXPLANATORY (adjective)
  The adjective EXPLANATORY has 1 sense:

1. serving or intended to explain or make clear

  Familiarity information: EXPLANATORY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXPLANATORY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Serving or intended to explain or make clear

Context example:

an explanatory paragraph

Similar:

informative; instructive (serving to instruct or enlighten or inform)

Derivation:

explain (make plain and comprehensible)

explain (define)

 Context examples 

The information recorded contains explanatory guidelines or notes regarding the sample.

(Annotated Tissue, NCI Thesaurus)

An explanatory or critical comment, or other in-context information (e.g., pattern, motif, link), that has been associated with data or other types of information.

(Annotation, NCI Thesaurus)

An explanatory note placed below the text on a page.

(Footnote, NCI Thesaurus)

He caught her curious and speculative eyes fixed on his hands, and, being in explanatory mood, he said:-

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Time and the world were slipping from beneath him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered were (in an explanatory tone) “Old clothes!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a sum of money, as in common account-books, but instead of explanatory writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith; but a keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched by Mr Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that it became a matter of course the next morning, still to defer her explanatory visit in Rivers Street.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

In one moment her imagination placed before her a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition, explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)