exhaustive

exhaustive — adjective

1. done or studied in such a complete way that every detail, case, or part has been

1.adjectiveC1
Definition

done or studied in such a complete way that every detail, case, or part has been looked at and nothing is missed or left out.

Example

The police carried out an exhaustive search of the whole building but found no weapons.

collocation: exhaustive search

Leila's report on air pollution was so exhaustive that it covered every city in the region.

predicative use with so…that clause

Synonyms
  • thorough

    emphasises careful attention to every step; more common and less formal than exhaustive

  • comprehensive

    focuses on broad coverage of a whole subject rather than every last detail

  • complete

    stresses that nothing is missing, but can be used more loosely

  • all-inclusive

    suggests every item or person is included, often used for packages or lists

Antonyms
  • incomplete

    opposite; some parts are missing or not covered

  • partial

    suggests only part of the whole is dealt with

  • selective

    implies a choice was made about what to include, rather than covering everything

Usage Note

Often used with nouns describing investigations or collections (search, list, study, review, test, collection). Compare with 'exhausting,' which means physically or mentally tiring rather than complete.

Common Mistakes

The teacher gave an exhausting explanation of the topic' (when meaning thorough).
The teacher gave an exhaustive explanation of the topic.
'exhausting' means tiring; 'exhaustive' means complete and thorough.

Word family

  • exhaustively
    adverbC1
  • exhaustiveness
    nounC2
  • inexhaustible
    adjectiveC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Thorough, comprehensive, complete, and exhaustive all describe covering something fully, but each has a distinct emphasis. Thorough focuses on careful attention to every step or detail, as in a thorough inspection of every pipe in the house. Comprehensive emphasises wide scope and coverage of an entire field, such as a comprehensive guide to Southeast Asian art. Complete stresses that nothing is missing — a complete set of tools has every piece. Exhaustive is the strongest of the four: it implies that every possible case, detail, or option has been considered, leaving no gap at all. For example, an exhaustive list of bird species in Taiwan names every bird ever recorded, not just the common ones. Thorough and comprehensive are more frequent in everyday and academic English; exhaustive is reserved for contexts where absolute completeness is the central claim.

thorough ↗comprehensive ↗complete ↗all-inclusive

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinEnglish

Exhaustive comes from the Latin verb exhaurire — from ex- ('out') and haurire ('to draw, drain') — meaning 'to draw out' or 'to drain completely'. Its earliest English uses in the 1600s described literal draining of liquid. By the 1700s, speakers began using it figuratively for ideas, arguments, or searches that had been 'drained of all possibilities' — that is, so thorough that nothing is left to add. The modern sense of 'covering every detail' was well established by the 1800s.