Research
A close, critical interpretation of a text — particularly scripture, legal code, or canonical literary and philosophical works; distinguished from eisegesis, which reads a meaning into a text rather than drawing one out of it.
Merriam-Webster: “exposition, explanation; especially : an explanation or critical interpretation of a text”. Borrowed from Late Greek exḗgēsis, “detailed account, description, exposition”, from exēgéomai, to expound or explain — built on ex- and hēgeîsthai, to lead. First recorded 1627. The “leading out” in the etymology is the distinction the word is usually invoked to make: drawing meaning out of a text rather than reading meaning into it.
Merriam-Webster is cited here as the dictionary of record. Where a lexicon entry defines a word rather than a position, a dictionary is the primary source for it — there is no other body with standing over what a word means. The reading of how the term is used in research writing, above, is this lexicon’s own.
Rewritten from a truncated AJG archive entry, August 2026.
Developed by Amit Jain at allfrontierglobal.com
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Developed by Amit Jain at allfrontierglobal.com · purposed.in · purposed · purposed2 · merchcomp.com · uuka.org
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