thorough

Painstaking and careful not to miss or omit any detail.

Adjective

  1. Painstaking and careful not to miss or omit any detail.
    • The Prime Minister announced a thorough investigation into the death of a father-of-two in police custody.
    • Not enough! Your work has to be thorougher than this.
    • It's the most thorough artwork I have ever seen!
  2. Utter; complete; absolute.
    • Dr. Oldfield once said to me, 'You talk to me quite all right, but why is it that you never open your lips at a committee meeting? You are a drone.' I appreciated the banter. The bees are ever busy, the drone is a...

Origin

From Middle English thoruȝ, þoruȝ, from Old English þuruh, a byform of Old English þurh, whence comes English through. The adjective derives from the preposition and adverb. The word developed a syllabic form in cases where the word was fully stressed: when it was used as an adverb, adjective, or noun, and less commonly when used as a preposition.

Forms

thorougher more thorough thoroughest most thorough thoro

Synonyms

comprehensive rigorous scrupulous downright outright unmitigated

Antonyms

cursory superficial surface-level

Derived

superthorough thoroughbrace thoroughbred thoroughbreed thoroughfare thoroughgoing thoroughlane thoroughly thoroughness thoroughpaced thoroughsped thorough-stitch thoroughwort unthorough

Noun

  1. A furrow between two ridges, to drain off the surface water.
    • The Ignorance and Idleness of the Plowman, who either goes so shallow, or plows his Thoroughs so wide, or misses Part of the Ground. - 1733, William Ellis, Chiltern And Vale Farming Explained:

Forms

thoroughs thoro

Preposition

  1. Through.
    • Ye might haue ſeene the frothy billowes fry Vnder the ſhip, as thorough them ſhe went […] - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
    • You are contented to be led in triumph Thorough the streets of Rome? - 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
    • At length did cross an Albatross: / Thorough the fog it came; […] - 1797–1798 (date written; revised 1817), S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In Seven Parts.”, in Sibylline Leaves: A...

Forms

thoro