thorough

comparative thorougher · comparative more thorough · superlative thoroughest · superlative most thorough · alternative informal thoro

1. Painstaking and careful not to miss or omit any detail.

   It's the most thorough artwork I have ever seen!

   3 more examples

   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.

   The infested house needs a thorough cleansing before being inhabitable again.

   Synonyms: comprehensive

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 thorough idler.

   1925–29, Mahatma Gandhi, “Shyness My Shield” (chapter XVIII), in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I (Autobiography), Ahemadabad: Navajivan Mudranalaya, →ISBN

   Synonyms: downright

alternative informal thoro

1. archaicThrough.First known use 9th–19th c.

   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 Collection of Poems, London: Rest Fenner, […], published 1817, →OCLC, page 6

   2 more examples

   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 […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], line 109

plural thoroughs · alternative informal thoro

1. UKdialectalA 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

1. historicalChristianityA 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.