Meaning & use
thoroughness
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Meaning
noununcountable
The quality of doing a job fully and with careful attention to every part.
Grammar: Uncountable: with thoroughness, not a thoroughness.
Patterns
- the thoroughness of something
- with great thoroughness
The inspector was praised for the thoroughness of her report.
He cleaned the lab with impressive thoroughness.
Her thoroughness meant that no detail was overlooked.
Common combinations
- great thoroughness
- They checked the building with great thoroughness.
- admire the thoroughness
- I admire the thoroughness of your research.
- thoroughness and accuracy
- The job requires thoroughness and accuracy.
- lack of thoroughness
- The review failed because of a lack of thoroughness.
- scientific thoroughness
- The team tested the drug with scientific thoroughness.
Synonyms and how they differ
- meticulousness
- Meticulousness focuses on tiny details, while thoroughness is about covering every part of the task.
- completeness
- Completeness describes the result, whereas thoroughness describes the effort and care behind it.
- diligence
- Diligence stresses steady hard work, and thoroughness stresses covering everything.
- rigor
- Rigor is more formal and suggests strict standards, especially in science or law.
Opposites
Word family
- thorough adjective
- complete and careful
- thoroughly adverb
- completely and carefully
- thoroughgoing adjective
- extreme or complete
Commonly confused: thoroughness or thorough?
thoroughness vs thorough
Thorough is the adjective; thoroughness is the noun. Do not confuse either with through, which means passing from one side to another.
Practice
The editor admired the ______ of her research; she had checked every source twice.
Choose one answer.
Thoroughness fits because she checked every source; carelessness is the opposite, and brevity and delay do not describe such care.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “thoroughness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.