exploration
noun
Simple meaning
Penetrating, or ranging over for purposes of discovery.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehksplerayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɛksplɚˈeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The process of penetrating, or ranging over for purposes of (especially geographical) discovery.
The (pre-)mining process of finding and determining commercially viable ore deposits (after prospecting), also called mineral exploration.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The process of penetrating, or ranging over for purposes of (especially geographical) discovery.
Used this way, exploration is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is used where position and measurement matter — travel, weather and flight — so it reads as factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Geography/travel
- Weather/aviation
- Technical/specialist writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use exploration
- “He called for a careful exploration of the consequences.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Someone who travels into little known regions (especially for some scientific purpose).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A method of examination in which the examiner feels the size or shape or firmness or location of something (of body parts when the examiner is a health professional).
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Serving in or intended for exploration or discovery.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.