Commentary

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: com=men=tar=y

CIDE DICTIONARY

Commentary, n. [L. commentarius, commentarium, note book, commentary: cf. F. commentaire. See Comment, v. i.].

•  A series of comments or annotations; esp., a book of explanations or expositions on the whole or a part of the Scriptures or of some other work.  [1913 Webster]

  "This letter . . . was published by him with a severe commentary."  [1913 Webster]
•  A brief account of transactions or events written hastily, as if for a memorandum; -- usually in the plural; as, Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Commentary, n. (pl. -ies)
1 a set of explanatory or critical notes on a text etc.
2 a descriptive spoken account (esp. on radio or television) of an event or a performance as it happens.

Etymology

L commentarius, -ium adj. used as noun (as COMMENT)

THESAURUS

Commentary

affix, allonge, analysis, annotation, apparatus criticus, appendix, coda, codicil, comment, commentation, critical review, criticism, critique, editorial, enclitic, envoi, epilogue, exegesis, footnote, gloss, infix, interlineation, interpolation, leader, leading article, marginalia, notation, note, note of explanation, notice, obiter dictum, observation, postscript, prefix, proclitic, remark, report, review, rider, running commentary, scholia, scholium, suffix, tail, word of explanation, write-up

ROGET THESAURUS

Commentary

Dissertation

N dissertation, treatise, essay, thesis, theme, monograph, tract, tractate, tractation, discourse, memoir, disquisition, lecture, sermon, homily, pandect, excursus, commentary, review, critique, criticism, article, leader, leading article, editorial, running commentary, investigation, study, discussion, exposition, commentator, critic, essayist, pamphleteer, discursive, discoursive, disquisitionary, expository.

Interpretation

N interpretation, definition, explanation, explication, solution, answer, rationale, plain interpretation, simple interpretation, strict interpretation, meaning, translation, rendering, rendition, redition, literal translation, free translation, key, secret, clew, clavis, crib, pony, trot, exegesis, expounding, exposition, hermeneutics, comment, commentary, inference, illustration, exemplification, gloss, annotation, scholium, note, elucidation, dilucidation, eclaircissement, mot d'enigme, symptomatology, semiology, semeiology, semiotics, metoposcopy, physiognomy, paleography, oneirology acception, acceptation, acceptance, light, reading, lection, construction, version, equivalent, equivalent meaning, synonym, paraphrase, metaphrase, convertible terms, apposition, dictionary, polyglot, explanatory, expository, explicative, explicatory, exegetical, construable, polyglot, literal, paraphrastic, metaphrastic, consignificative, synonymous, equivalent, in explanation, that is to say, id est, videlicet, to wit, namely, in other words, literally, strictly speaking, in plain, in plainer terms, in plainer words, in plainer English, more simply.