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Definition of explanatory : Serving to explain; containing explanation; as explanatory notes.

Synonyms:

critical, interpretative, informative, annotative, expositive, graphic, illuminating, discursive, exegetic, explaining, explain, clarifying, guiding, declarative, instructive, illustrative, hermeneutic, supplementary, elucidative, explanative, informing, exegetical, expository, allegorical, explicative, hermeneutical

analytical, interpretive

descriptive, definitive, significant, indicative, relevant, meaningful, denotational, purposeful, explicit, communicative, topical

Usage examples:

• He admired the good order in use amongst us, and said that he had for a long time desired to be informed respecting the principles of Friends; that he thought as we did, that an express call of the Holy Spirit was necessary to the ministry, and that women as well as men ought to be allowed to preach, I felt intimately united to him in spirit: on parting we gave him some tracts explanatory of our principles. - "Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel", John Yeardley.
• However, my total innocence of any intentional allusion to private matters whereof I was entirely ignorant was set clear at once by an explanatory letter; and so no harm resulted. - "My Life as an Author", Martin Farquhar Tupper.
• Others have contented themselves by recording the facts without advancing any explanatory hypothesis beyond that embodied in the incontestable statement that such phenomena must be referred to the effects of tangential forces acting in the Earth's crust. - "The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays", J. (John) Joly.