exhaustive
Americanadjective
-
exhausting a subject, topic, etc.; comprehensive; thorough.
He published an exhaustive study of Greek vases.
-
tending to exhaust or drain, as resources or strength.
a protracted, exhaustive siege of illness.
adjective
-
comprehensive in scope; thorough
an exhaustive survey
-
tending to exhaust
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of exhaustive
Explanation
Exhaustive means performed comprehensively and completely. When you recruit a new employee (or spouse), you undertake an exhaustive search for the best talent. When you are exhaustive about something, you are testing all possibilities or considering all elements. If you want to become an attorney you will need an exhaustive knowledge of the leather bound books in the law library. When you exhaust something, you use it up entirely, so something exhaustive is complete. After your exhaustive tour of Rome, you're exhausted.
Vocabulary lists containing exhaustive
The Martian
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From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
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Native Speaker
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But this remains in limbo after days of exhaustive deliberations.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
Consumers can access a wide range of activities without the exhaustive planning that can come with a trip outside of an all-inclusive, they said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 23, 2026
This was not an exhaustive search, and it is likely that there are more investigations into incidents of harm that were not captured in our search.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
His evaluation isn’t exhaustive, since he couldn’t access some syllabi, and some didn’t include all readings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
The ancient information is written in exhaustive, careful, redundant detail— how to laugh, how to sneeze, how to walk, how to recognize patterns, how to reproduce, how to digest an apple.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
