Explore is to travel through or examine something to learn about it. Explode is to burst apart violently. Explore the caves; the boiler exploded. One letter — an r or a d — and the families give them away: explorer, exploration; explosion, explosive.
The core difference
- explore — to travel through an unfamiliar place; to examine or investigate. Explore the coast, explore the options, the report explores the causes.
- explode — to burst violently; to increase suddenly; to show a belief to be false. The shell exploded, the population exploded, explode a myth.
The tell
Explore makes explorer and exploration. Explode makes explosion and explosive. Say the noun and the verb spells itself. The r is shared with roam; the d with detonate, if you want a hook.
In use
- explore — We spent the morning exploring the old town. The study explores how children learn to read.
- explode — The firework exploded early. House prices exploded in the 1980s.
Common slips
- the bomb explored → the bomb exploded
- we exploded the caves → we explored the caves
Explorers explore; explosions explode.
Where the words come from
Explore is from Latin explorare, "to search out, investigate" — ex- + plorare "to cry out", thought to be the hunters' shout that flushed game. Explode is from Latin explodere, "to drive off by clapping" — ex- + plaudere "to clap": a bad actor was exploded from the stage. The bang came later, in the eighteenth century.
Frequently asked questions
What did explode originally mean?
To drive an actor off stage by clapping and hissing — from Latin plaudere, to clap. "Explode a myth" keeps that sense of rejecting something.
Is explode a transitive verb?
Both. The bomb exploded (intransitive); they exploded the bomb (transitive).
What is the noun from explore?
Exploration; the person is an explorer. From explode: explosion; the adjective is explosive.