English

Adjective

thoroughgoing ‎(comparative more thoroughgoing, superlative most thoroughgoing)

1. Complete; thorough; full; with great attention to detail.

   He did a thoroughgoing job of cleaning up the broken glass.

   • 1871, Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, New York: J.S. Redfield, p.50,

     It must be reiterated, as, for the purpose of these Memoranda, the deep lesson of History and Time, that all else in the contributions of a nation or age, through its politics, materials, heroic personalities, military eclat, &c., remains crude, and defers, in any close and thorough-going estimate, until vitalized by national, original archetypes in literature.

   • 1927, T. S. Eliot, "The Humanism of Irving Babbitt," in Selected Essays, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964, p. 425,

     I am myself a thoroughgoing individualist, writing for those who are, like myself, irrevocably committed to the modern experiment.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943, Chapter XI, p. 182,

     Mr. Prayter was a thorough-going cleric in the way of eating. He ate till there was nothing left.

   • 1967, Time, "Marijuana is Still Illegal," 29 December, 1967,

     After six months of preparation, Lawyer Joseph Oteri began in September the most thoroughgoing legal attack on antimarijuana laws ever made.

Alternative forms

• thorough-going

Translations