thoroughgoing

American  

[thur-oh-goh-ing, -uh-goh-, thuhr-] / ˈθɜr oʊˌgoʊ ɪŋ, -əˌgoʊ-, ˈθʌr- /

adjective

1. doing things thoroughly.

2. carried out to the full extent; thorough.

3. complete; unqualified.

   a thoroughgoing knave.

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thoroughgoing British  

/ ˈθʌrəˌɡəʊɪŋ /

adjective

1. extremely thorough

2. (usually prenominal) absolute; complete

   thoroughgoing incompetence

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Other Word Forms

• thoroughgoingly adverb
• thoroughgoingness noun

Etymology

Origin of thoroughgoing

First recorded in 1810–20; thorough + going

Example Sentences

“The Bloody Crossroads,” published in 1987, isn’t the kind of book you expect a journalist to write: a collection of perceptive, thoroughgoing literary essays on important writers from Henry Adams to Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025

The irrepressible Mr. Ozawa surmounted this prejudice by dint of his outsize personality, thoroughgoing musicianship and sheer hard work.

From New York Times • Feb. 9, 2024

In 1976, Biden, then 33, was a thoroughgoing Jimmy Carter Democrat.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 26, 2023

It’s a title that, in its thoroughgoing lack of self-awareness, matches this book’s contents.

From New York Times • Aug. 17, 2022

And so his texts played a decisive role in legitimizing the new post-Kuhnian history of science because they were wrongly read as endorsing a thoroughgoing relativism.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton