thorough

• thoro (informal)

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.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈθʌɹə/, /ˈθʌɹəʊ/

• Audio (UK):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈθʌɹoʊ/

• Audio (US, without the hurry–furry merger):

  (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈθɝoʊ/

• Audio (US, hurry–furry merger):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌɹə, -ʌɹəʊ

thorough (comparative thorougher or more thorough, superlative thoroughest or most 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.

   Not enough! Your work has to be thorougher than this.

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

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

2. Utter; complete; absolute.
   • 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:

     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.

• (detailed): comprehensive, rigorous, scrupulous; see also Thesaurus:meticulous or Thesaurus:comprehensive
• (utter; complete; absolute): downright, outright, unmitigated; see also Thesaurus:total

• (antonym(s) of “not detailed”): cursory, superficial, surface-level

thorough

1. (archaic) Through. [9th–19th c.]
   • 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?

   • 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:

     At length did cross an Albatross: / Thorough the fog it came; […]

thorough (plural thoroughs)

1. (UK, dialect) A furrow between two ridges, to drain off the surface water.
   • 1733, William Ellis, Chiltern And Vale Farming Explained:

     The Ignorance and Idleness of the Plowman, who either goes so shallow, or plows his Thoroughs so wide, or misses Part of the Ground.