thorough
see also: Thorough
Etymology

From Middle English thoruȝ, þoruȝ, from Old English þuruh, a byform of Old English þurh, whence comes English through.

Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈθʌɹə/, /ˈθʌɹəʊ/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈθʌɹoʊ/
  • (America, Canada) IPA: /ˈθɝoʊ/
Adjective

thorough

  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.
    He is the most thorough worker I have ever seen.
    The infested house needs a thorough cleansing before it will be inhabitable.
  2. Utter; complete; absolute.
    • 1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I, chapter xviii:
      I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Vegetarian Society, and made it a point to attend every one of its meetings, but I always felt tongue-tied. 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 thorough idler. And it was not a little curious that whilst others expressed their opinions at these meetings, I sat quite silent. Not that I never felt tempted to speak. But I was at a loss to know how to express myself. All the rest of the members appeared to me to be better informed than I. Then it often happened that just when I had mustered up courage to speak, a fresh subject would be started. This went on for a long time.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Preposition
  1. (obsolete) Through. [9th]
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:
      Ye might haue ſeene the frothy billowes fry
      Vnder the ſhip, as thorough them ſhe went […]
    • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act V, scene i], line 109:
      You are contented to be led in triumph
      Thorough the streets of Rome?
Noun

thorough (plural thoroughs)

  1. (UK, dialect) A furrow between two ridges, to drain off the surface water.

Thorough
Proper noun
  1. (Christianity, historical) A scheme devised in 17th-century England by Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford to establish absolute monarchy in England, involving the appointment of Arminian clergy.



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