[f. THOROUGH a. + -NESS.] The quality of being thorough or of doing things thoroughly; the condition of being done thoroughly; completeness of execution or treatment; completeness in general, perfectness.
1843. Prescott, Mexico (1850), I. 152. A book of the highest authority, for the perspicuity, fidelity, and thoroughness, with which the multifarious topics in it are discussed.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. vii. § 3. The thoroughness of their application to work.
1862. Dana, Man. Geol., II. 245. The exception to the thoroughness of the extinction in the Eastern border region.
1897. E. K. Chambers, in Bookman, Jan., 113/1. He has emulated the Teutonic thoroughness without the Teutonic pedantry.
