这个动词词组在语法上相当于一个及物动词（可用被动形式“to be accounted for”），其释义如下：
解释、说明（主语为人或事，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。
交代清楚（主语为人，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。
查明下落（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.
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。”
被动语气：已经知道下落（延续状态）
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”可作为形容词使用，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（建议加连字符）。
被动语气：已经计算在内（延续状态）
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。
主动语气：占总量的份额（延续状态）
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年占了出生数字中的很大份额。