Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Treating all parts or aspects without omission; thorough.
  • adjective Tending to exhaust.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Exhausting; tending to exhaust; exhausting all parts or phases; thorough: specifically applied to a disquisition, treatise, criticism, etc., which treats of a subject in such a way as to leave no part of it unexamined.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Serving or tending to exhaust; exhibiting all the facts or arguments.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Including every possible element.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective performed comprehensively and completely

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Priestley used every available information network of the day to share his discoveries and insights: he published nearly five hundred books and pamphlets over the course of his life, and wrote endless correspondence to his colleagues, documenting in exhaustive detail the techniques behind his experiments.

    Boing Boing 2009

  • Nate Silver, who examined this issue in exhaustive detail recently, finds that no regular, general election Senate candidate "with a lead of more than 5.5 points in the polling average, with 30 days to go in the race, has lost since 1998: these candidates are 68-0."

    Explaining The Pollster-Dashboard Win Probabilities The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • As for the “election” part of EFCA, my suggestion would be to require the vote to be held almost immediately after getting card check approval — maybe as little as one week later — which would prevent employers from engaging in exhaustive anti-union campaigning prior to the election.

    Wonk Room » McGovern Takes Aim At Employee Free Choice Act’s Arbitration Provision 2009

  • Nor am I the mighty-brained kind, who knows every system in exhaustive detail and who can explain the thematic differences between 3rd and 4th edition.

    Geek confession time « 2009

  • I remember sitting around through a long dark afternoon as some people I thought I knew discussed in exhaustive detail the advantages of different kinds of winter boot.

    MIND MELD: How Does Blogging and Social Networking Affect the Publishing Industry? 2009

  • So as I am sure this book will be reviewed in exhaustive detail elsewhere, I will simply offer up a few personal impressions and observations in no particular order.

    “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer Doug Knipe 2008

  • The lack of any stable, supra-individual framework (an issue to which I'll return at the end of this paper) is the price paid for the intrinsic volatility of capital itself which, as Marx was to analyze in exhaustive detail later on, realizes its local purposes and macro-historical mission by metastasizing into myriad forms, a process facilitated by so many free, competitive, and uncomprehending individuals.

    The Melancholic Gift: Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy and Fiction 2008

  • We had a totally excellent weekend, which, if I wrote up in exhaustive detail, would be fun, but I'm too damned tired to right now and experience tells me if I don't do it right away I never will.

    June 5th, 2006 ursulav 2006

  • 40Over the course of these three meetings with the FBI and HUAC, Dmytryk eventually laid out in exhaustive detail his own history with the Communist Party and his experiences in different groups the FBI and HUAC considered to be Communist fronts.

    Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood 2007

  • Kappes's investigation, which former intelligence officials familiar with the matter describe as exhaustive, determined there was no evidence that any classified materials had been compromised.

    Belgrade Burndown 2007

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