Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Exhaustively complete: a thorough search.
- adj. Painstakingly accurate or careful: thorough research.
- adj. Absolute; utter: a thorough pleasure.
- prep. Archaic Variant of through.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Through. See through, a later form of thorough, now the exclusive form as a preposition and adverb.
- Through: as, thoroughgoing. See through, adverb
- Going through; through, in a literal sense: a form now occurring only in dialectal use or in certain phrases and compounds. See through, adjective
- Going through, as to the end or bottom of anything; thoroughgoing. Hence— Penetrating; searching; sharp; keen.
- Leaving nothing undone; slighting nothing; not superficial.
- Fully executed; having no deficiencies; hence, complete in all respects; unqualified; perfect.
- Earnest; ardent. [Rare.]
- n. That which goes through. Specifically— A thoroughfare; a passage; a channel.
- n. A furrow between two ridges.
- n. Same as perpend.
- n. In Brit. hist., in the reign of Charles I., the policy of Strafford and Laud of conducting or carrying through (‘thorough’) the administration of public affairs without regard to obstacles. Hence the word is associated with their system of tyranny.
Wiktionary
- adj. painstaking and careful not to miss or omit any detail
- adj. utter; complete; absolute
- n. UK, dialect A furrow between two ridges, to drain off the surface water.
GNU Webster's 1913
- prep. obsolete Through.
- adj. obsolete Passing through.
- adj. Passing through or to the end; hence, complete; perfect.
- adv. Obs. or Colloq. Thoroughly.
- adv. obsolete Through.
- n. Prov. Eng. A furrow between two ridges, to drain off the surface water.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. painstakingly careful and accurate
- adj. performed comprehensively and completely
Etymologies
- A disyllabic form of Old English þurh ("through"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English thorow, through, thorough, from Old English thuruh, from end to end, through; see terə-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A great authority on education says: "Any work that deserves thorough study, deserves the labor of making an Abstract, _without which, indeed, the study is not thorough_.”
“- In today's installment of TA Talks Back, I (Kara/Team Switzerland) give you my very long (I prefer to use the term thorough) review of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”
“After what he called a thorough investigation, President Bush today gave his OK for Doncasters to be taken over by Dubai International Capital.”
“Treasury for what she called their thorough responses.”
“BOIES: Is that something that you would want to do if you were doing what you called a thorough statistical analysis?”
“BOIES: Were you asked to do what you define as a thorough statistical analysis?”
“To his consternation, he found the drum in thorough working order.”
“So thorough is the American acculturation to the glory of war and the uprightness of nation that even unimpeachable evidence of atrocities is insufficient to break through the hegemonic facade.”
The Huffington Post: Randall Amster: WikiLessons: War Is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny
“First and last, Thoreau who pronounced his name thorough, by the way was a writer.”
“A main thorough-fare for buses, cambis and just plain heavy traffic use.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thorough’.
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[Open] Correctly-spelled words that l...
Thanks to everyone who added to this list. (I moved it to a new URL, so all the words added on the first day are credited to me—sorry about that.)
(Here’s the original list with a slo...orignal, refect, collum, lightening, manakin, neumatic, mutch, miosis, radicle, tryptic, kyack, apatite and 119 more...
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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EN - eesily missspellable wirds
accessible, accommodate, achievement, acquaintance, address, advertisement, alleged, athletics, attendance, auxiliary, believe, challenge and 118 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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Quacksalvers et al. Nostrum
Bring forth the cathartic illumination on malignant,maniacal,medical,menage a trios and more egotists stymie
culpability, piousfraud, capacitous, rhabdomyolysis, scapula, idiosyncrasy, quiescent, malignant, nefarious, sociological, sociopath, pathogen and 204 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 569 more...
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Ugh!
the ending, that is
clough, enough, cough, through, though, thorough, slough, chough, hough, tough, although, borough and 11 more...
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Sober/Stately/Steady
resolute, unfaltering, deliberate, resolved, circumspect, thoughtful, intent, earnest, ardent, intense, sedulous, laborious and 138 more...
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Neuro-logical ??
The discovering of neuro and phago-cyte nano-engineered biology...
opsoclonus, opsomania, speciefic, opsonin, reveal, parsec, stereopsis, scarious, ablative absolute, presage, requisitory, nuance and 62 more...
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The chaos of "ough" words
Don't even start me on the chaos of English words containing the sequence "ough". Let's create a list to see how many unique pronunciations we get from this sequence of letters.
though, through, enough, thought, slough, rough, dough, bough, cough, ought, doughty, thorough
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Words English Learners Don't Use
though, inevitable, thorough, awkward, presumption, inevitably, overwhelming, startle, odd, weird, awful, witty
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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Descriptive
The present, the future. Goals, wishes, hopes.
capricious, sericeous, sleek, flawless, charming, skilled, long-haired, versatile, beautiful, witty, fair, thin and 145 more...
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GRE AWA
escalating, vehement, vehemence, hostility, paparazzi, regime, irrespective, scoop, exaggerated, overblown, unfetter, scrupulous and 272 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for thorough.

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