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explain away
verb
- tr, adverb to offer excuses or reasons for (bad conduct, mistakes, etc)
Idioms and Phrases
Dismiss or minimize the importance of something, especially something detrimental. For example, “His words were taken down, and though he tried to explain them away, he was sent to the Tower” (Thomas Macaulay, The History of England , 1855). [c. 1700]Example Sentences
Reflecting on McDonald's statement, she said: "What the party did yesterday was try to excuse and explain away its behaviour."
The lack of hard data after all these decades of extravagant claims about massive fraud points toward an inescapable conclusion: “Illegal” voting is not a real issue but rather an attempt by Republicans to explain away their losses and delegitimatize any Democratic victories, past or future.
Yet just seven games in, familiar noises are starting to come out of Old Trafford to explain away below-par results.
Attempting to explain away what had happened, Watson regaled the courtroom with "Leave It to Beaver"-style stories of his upbringing.
They pick up on any and all evidence about human evil and conniving and explain away or ignore evidence of positive human qualities.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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