Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Explanation or interpretation in the form of a series of comments or observations.
  • noun An ongoing series of spoken remarks, especially during a television or radio broadcast of an event.
  • noun An apt explanation or illustration.
  • noun An expository treatise or series of annotations; an exegesis.
  • noun A narrative of historical events of which one has personal experience.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To write notes or comments.
  • To comment upon.
  • noun A series or collection of comments or annotations; especially, an explanation or elucidation of difficult and obscure passages in a book or other writing, and consideration of questions suggested by them, arranged in the same order as in the text or writing examined; an explanatory essay or treatise: as, a commentary on the Bible. A textual commentary explains the author's meaning, sentence by sentence.
  • noun Anything that serves to explain or illustrate; an exemplification.
  • noun A historical narrative; an explanatory record of particular transactions: as, the Commentaries of Cæsar.
  • noun Synonyms See remark, n.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.
  • noun A brief account of transactions or events written hastily, as if for a memorandum; -- usually in the plural.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A series of comments or annotations; especially, a book of explanations or expositions on the whole or a part of some other work.
  • noun 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.
  • noun An oral description of an event, especially broadcast by television or radio, as it occurs.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a written explanation or criticism or illustration that is added to a book or other textual material

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin commentarius, commentarium ("note book"), confer French commentaire. See comment.

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Examples

  • June 17th, 2009 at 7: 14 pm bob Says: your commentary is a fine example of what sucks about the internet: any two-bit fat fuk with an opinion can set himself up as commentator and a lot of stupid people believe that anything you have to say might actually be relevant or meaningful. go back to selling used cars or whatever it is people of your “stature” did before blogging got hip …

    Wonk Room » Open Letter To Robert Kagan 2009

  • When I link to something, I try to be aware of what in particular about it grabbed my attention, and what I try to do in my commentary is address that specifically as briefly as possible.

    April 2009 Maxine 2009

  • In the few cases where I * do* have domain specific knowledge, I often see you making mistakes, which makes me wonder how much of the remainder of your commentary is accurate.

    Matthew Yglesias » Critique of Pure Yglesias 2010

  • When I link to something, I try to be aware of what in particular about it grabbed my attention, and what I try to do in my commentary is address that specifically as briefly as possible.

    Frank Wilson and the beauty of brevity Maxine 2009

  • When I link to something, I try to be aware of what in particular about it grabbed my attention, and what I try to do in my commentary is address that specifically as briefly as possible.

    Weblogs Maxine 2009

  • The answer to all of the questions posed in this commentary is a resounding YES!

    Will the Senate health bill tame costs? 2009

  • Nowhere in the commentary is the word illegal used yet when people are asked it is always the subtext.

    Immigration: Has the Public Been Ignored?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • When I link to something, I try to be aware of what in particular about it grabbed my attention, and what I try to do in my commentary is address that specifically as briefly as possible.

    Frank Wilson and the beauty of brevity Maxine 2009

  • Update: Ok, the commenters have a point on second viewing: the commentary is approximately as annoying and tendentious as Klein.

    Video Fisking 2008

  • Makes me extra happy for having Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki as the leads on my favourite show ... interesting or not, the commentary is there.

    Ever Wonder Why… | the TV addict 2007

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