■ account for

1) （主语是人或事）解释、说明（其经过或理由）（是个延续状态动词）。

• How do you account for the dent in the car?车身上的凹痕你又作何解释呢？
• That would account for his behavior.那也许能说明他为什么有这样的行为。
• Bad weather accounted for the long delay.耽搁时间那么长，原因是天气恶劣。

2) （主语是人）交代清楚（是个瞬时动态动词）。

• I have to account for every penny I spend.我花每一分钱都必须交代清楚。
• One thousand dollars remains to be accounted for.还有一千美元尚未交代清楚。
• Do I have to account to you for everything I do?难道我做什么事情都得向你交代？
• You'll have to account to me for whatever happens to her.她出了什么事情，我都唯你是问。
• The suspect couldn't account for his time that night.嫌疑犯无法交代那一天夜里他干了些什么。

3) 查明下落（是个瞬时动态动词）。

• Kip Godwin, chairman of the Columbus County Commission, said authorities had nearly concluded their search of the area where all the deaths occurred... and had accounted for everyone. (The Associated Press, Nov. 16, 2006)哥伦布郡委员会主席基普·戈德温说：“当局已经对所有致死事件发生的那个地区完成了搜索…查明了所有人的下落。”

4) （被动语气，延续状态）已经知道下落。

• Another 3,400 employees have made initial contact with the company but are not working and 500 are not yet accounted for.另有 3400 人初步同公司取得了联系，但尚未上班，500 人仍然下落不明。
• We suspected thousands had been killed, and many who worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not yet accounted for.我们估计，有好几千人丧生，许多在世界贸易中心和五角大楼上班的人仍然下落不明。

accounted for 这个词组甚至成了正式的形容词，可以直接放在名词前面（注意后面的名词不是 for 的宾语）。

• List of already accounted for objects.已有下落的物品清单（最好加连字符：accounted-for）。

否定形式也可以用 unaccounted for。

5) （被动语气，延续状态）已经计算在内。

• These transactions are already accounted for on the balance sheet.这些交易已经列入了收支表中。
• However, these costs are often discounted within the organization because they're already accounted for in payroll expenses.但是，这些成本往往在组织内是刨去的，因为工资支出中已经计算在内了。

6) （主动语气，延续状态）占总量当中多大的份额。

• In 1991 women already accounted for more than 50％ of jobs in certain services. 1991 年妇女在某些服务业中已经占了百分之五十以上的职位。
• Table 9 also shows that in some cases immigrants already accounted for a large share of births in 1970.表 9 还表明，在某些场合，移民在 1970 年占了出生数字当中很大的份额。