[f. as prec. + -NESS.] Comprehensive quality or state, the quality of comprising or including much.
1635. Shelford, Five Treat., 188. The universalitie and comprehensivenesse of God’s will.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., IV. vi. (1695), 333. General Truths … by their comprehensiveness … enlarge our view, and shorten our way to Knowledge.
1791. Burke, App. Whigs, Wks. VI. 222. In learning, sense, energy, and comprehensiveness it is fully equal to all the modern dissertations.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Feb., 473/1. The comprehensiveness of the volume is surprising.
b. spec. Breadth of intellectual range, mental capaciousness.
1683. Cave, Ecclesiastici, Basil, 218. The quickness and comprehensiveness of his Parts.
1759. Johnson, Rasselas, xxviii. 81. Those, whose accuracy of remark, and comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their suffrages worthy of regard.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, ii. 37. Nothing is more remarkable about Empedocles than his versatility and comprehensiveness.
