Look up explicate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Explication (German: Explikation) is the process of drawing out the meaning of something which is not clearly defined, so as to make explicit what is currently left implicit. The term explication is used in both analytic philosophy and literary criticism. Rudolf Carnap was the first to coin the term in an analytic philosophical approach in his book Logical Foundations of Probability, while the term is supplanted with Gustave Lanson’s idea of Explication de Texte when referring to the analysis and criticism of different forms of literature.