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Thoroughness   Listen
noun
Thoroughness  n.  The quality or state of being thorough; completeness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thoroughness" Quotes from Famous Books



... Among them are treasures beyond price; for Lampron is a genius whose only mistake is to live and act with modesty, so that as yet people only say that he has "immense talent." No painter or engraver of repute—and he is both—has served a more conscientious apprenticeship, or sets greater store on thoroughness in his art. His drawing is correct beyond reproach—a little stiff, like the early painters. You can guess from his works his partiality for the old masters—Perugino, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Memling, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... constantly searching dwellings, often entire neighborhoods, and with a thoroughness which entirely disregarded the possibility of damaging an innocent person's property. These "domiciliary registrations" were, of course, supposed to be unexpected, but in the later Spanish days the intended victims usually had warning from some employee in the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... is to say practical cookery, gives fewer opportunities than fashion for the display of merely literary skill. It is a subject which demands from the journalist clearness and thoroughness. The average cookery article may be passably clear so far as it goes, but it is rarely thorough, and so it fails in usefulness. Writers upon cookery in women's papers have been content, without thinking upon what is really wanted, to follow the methods of cookery books, ignoring the truism ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett

... esteem and consideration; but he wished to achieve them through real merit. He always insists upon thoroughness of subject, of means, and of treatment, and is therefore very ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... organization is judged by its field efficiency. The field efficiency of an organization depends primarily upon its effectiveness as a whole. Thoroughness and uniformity in the training of the units of an organization are indispensable to the efficiency of the whole; it is by such means alone that the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... work, which appeared in three parts, entitled respectively History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France (2 vols., 1879), The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre (2 vols., 1886), and The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (2 vols., 1895), is characterized by painstaking thoroughness, by a judicial temper, and by scholarship of a high order. He also published Modern Greece, A Narrative of a Residence and Travels in that Country (1856); a biography of his father, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... regarded the contest in New York as somewhat personal to himself, and from day to day sought information with the anxious persistency that characterised his inquiries during the canvass in 1860. Fenton fully appreciated the importance of vindicating the President, and for the admirable thoroughness of the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... The fact was patent on the face of him, and he would not be in a condition to dispute the thoroughness of his trouncing for ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... roily, shoaly seas breaking clear over the ship across decks drove Cook out from land to deeper water. With an Englishman's thoroughness for doing things and to make deadly sure just how the two continents lay to each other, Cook now scuds across Bering Strait thirty-nine miles to the Chukchee land of Siberia in Asia. How he praises the accuracy of poor {194} Bering's work along this coast: Bering, whose ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... later Bibles she used are in existence, and bear testimony to the thoroughness of her methods. Almost every page is a mass of interlineations and notes. As one turns them over, phrases here and there catch the eye, arresting in thought and epigrammatic in form; ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... England. The history of this system of distinctly Frankish origin—a knowledge of which is absolutely essential to a proper understanding of history and the evolution of our present social system—is told by Stubbs with that discernment and thoroughness of analysis which have given him his rank as one of the few masterly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... have never been seen to originate in not-living matter. Then the ground is cleared for the strictly biological inquiry, How do they originate? To answer that question we must study the life histories of the minutest forms with the same continuity and thoroughness with which we study the development of a crayfish or a butterfly. The difficulty in the way of this is the extreme minuteness of the organisms. We require powerful and perfect lenses for the work. Happily ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... organization. The indefatigably industrious and docile German mind can work out and apply the inventions furnished it, with marvelous persistency and effectiveness, under paternal control. We have the problem of achieving by voluntary effort and cooperation a persistent thoroughness in working out the ideas and inventions that come to us ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... the muzzle of the rifle followed him. The man could look down the sights of his rifle and at the same time examine his visitor, which he did with thoroughness. ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... still left. Tough shrubs of the sand-hills furnished trennels and suppler parts. Of ropes there was no lack. The mast was easily dragged down again to the beach to be once more a mast, and in nervous haste, yet with skill and thoroughness, the tent was ripped up and remade into a sail, and even a rude centreboard was rigged in order that one might ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable

... of the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. There are dozens of substantial brick dwellings, offices, warehouses, machine-shops and a hospital. For a hundred miles to the Angola border and far beyond, the Yankee has cut motor roads and set up civilization generally. You see American thoroughness on all sides, even in the immense native villages where the mine employees live. Instead of having compounds the company encourages the blacks to establish their own settlements and live their own ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... was chiefly meritorious for a general improvement in the construction of the instrument. If he did not originate many important devices, he was eager to adopt those of others, and he made the whole instrument with British thoroughness. The strings, the action, the case, the pedals, and all the numberless details of mechanism received his thoughtful attention, and show to the present time traces of his honest and intelligent mind. It was in this John Broadwood's factory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... of contemporaneous science, Mr. Edison attacked the dynamo problem with his accustomed vigor and thoroughness. He chose the drum form for his armature, and experimented with different kinds of iron. Cores were made of cast iron, others of forged iron; and still others of sheets of iron of various thicknesses separated from each ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... from his diary and correspondence, to convey to the reader some idea of the ardency and thoroughness with which he threw himself into the largest and least of his multifarious engagements in this service. But first I must say a word or two upon the life of lightkeepers, and the temptations to which they are more particularly ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... what he wanted me to do, and I wish he could have known how I value it. He was the best of men, the kindest and noblest; and he was a wonderful scholar. He had the habit of thoroughness." ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... have of smiting with equal fury the just and the unjust; how you only need to be a little foolish, quite a little foolish, under conditions that seem to force it upon you, and down they come, sure and relentless, and you are smitten with a thoroughness that leaves you lame for years; how motives are nothing, circumstances are nothing; how the motives may have been aflame with goodness, the circumstances such that any other course was impossible; how all these things don't matter in ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... examined with some thoroughness the component parts of the tide of immigration as it arrives at our shores; we have seen what nationalities go to make up the grand total and what previous training they have had in the political institutions of their native countries to fit them for American citizenship, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... fresh and fertile field for the occupation of mankind. Geographically no discovery of such consequence had been made since the noble days of Cook. It brought the names of Bass and Flinders prominently before the scientific world, and the thoroughness with which the latter had done his work won him warm praise from men competent to form a judgment. Intimations concerning the discovery published in the Naval Chronicle and other journals valued the work very highly; and it had the advantage of bringing the commander of the Norfolk ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... bridge. The commissioner of streets explained what alterations should be made in the approaches, and the commissioner of finance knew in just what way the city could best pay for the improvement. Honorable Judges, such men are in a position to legislate with thoroughness. They are a commission council, the very nature of which makes it inevitable that they act ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon

... the men, dust-grimed, her rags held together with pins and lacings of deer hide. She performed her share of the work with automatic thoroughness, eating when the hour came, sleeping on the ground under the stars, staggering up in the deep-blue dawn and buckling her horse's harness with fingers that fatigue made clumsy. She was more silent than ever before, often when the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... their vehicles for lastminute preparations. A final check was made of gas, oil, and the positions of the wirecutters. Maps, showing the location of each house now covered by the grass, were studied and compasspoints checked against them. I admired the thoroughness and efficiency of the arrangements. So did ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... we could only teach this one thing: a great thirst for knowledge! But this desire we can not impart: it is trial, difficulty, obstacle, deprivation and persecution that make souls hunger and thirst after knowledge. Young Huxley wanted to know. His thoroughness in the drugstore won the admiration of the doctors whose prescriptions he compounded, and several of them loaned him books and took him to clinics; and at seventeen we find him with a Free Scholarship in Charing Cross Hospital, serving as nurse and assistant surgeon. Then came the appointment ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... children and the age at which they are allowed to work were largely restricted. A National Children's Bureau, under the charge of Miss Julia Lathrope, has been created at Washington; and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman was appointed to the Industrial Relations Commission. The minuteness and thoroughness of modern legislation for the protection of women may be realised by noting that in 1913 alone New York passed laws that no girl under sixteen shall in any city of the first, second, or third class sell newspapers ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... display of prosaic executive capacity. What had to be done she had done more promptly, wisely, and easily than any man could have accomplished it. She had foreseen possibilities and forestalled accident with a thoroughness which he himself could ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... France, especially in its relations with England;—Normandy, Anjou. Then early England, especially in its relations with France. The end will be a county, or a town—nay, possibly a building. Why not devote one's self to the history of a market-cross? It would be respectable, I tell you. Thoroughness is all.' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... very last thing that has been thought of in religion. Religion is being converted before our eyes. It is becoming touched with the temper of science, with the thoroughness, the doggedness, the inconsolableness of science until it is seeing how and until it ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... belief is that no latter-day man has any faith in the thoroughness or permanence of his affection for his mate. Yet he does not doubt the sincerity of her professions, and he conceals the hollowness of his own from her, partly because he is ashamed of it, and partly out of pity ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most stately manner he parted the tails of his skirted coat, seated himself upon the sofa, placed his hat beside him, drew up the knees of his black broadcloth trousers, took off and wiped his spectacles with great thoroughness and deliberation upon a large silk handkerchief, replaced them upon the middle of his Roman nose, cleared his throat, pursed his lips, and drily but clearly ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... revolution, and in this conception of a slowly growing new social order organized with open deliberation within the substance of the old, there are no doubt elements of technical treason, but an enormous gain in the thoroughness, efficiency, and ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... who likes to take history in an entertaining form is recommended to BEHSE'S History of the Austrian Court, Nobility, and Diplomacy, of which two volumes are just published in Germany. They can make no just claim to philosophical thoroughness, but are full of readable anecdotes and interesting ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... about her, and they became considerably more indolent than when they had to deal with lady Feng. But after the expiry of three or four days several concerns passed through her hands, which gave them an opportunity to gradually find out that T'an Ch'un did not, in smartness and thoroughness, yield to lady Feng, and that the only difference between them was that she was soft in speech and gentle in disposition. By a remarkable coincidence, princes, dukes, marquises, earls, and hereditary officials arrived for consecutive days from various parts; all of whom were, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... with orders, on his way to the Indus to pay a hostile visit to Khelat, and punish its khan for the 'disloyalty' with which he had been charged, a commission which the British officer fulfilled with a skill and thoroughness that could be admired with less reservation had the aggression on the gallant Mehrab been less wanton. A month later Keane started for India by the Khyber route, which Wade had opened without serious resistance when ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... weeks, inspired apparently only by an incredible mania for mischief, much like that of a monkey or a revengeful savage, but guided by remarkable intelligence. He will find his way into a camp and destroy every object made by the hand of man with a thoroughness akin to genius, and what he cannot destroy he will carry to a great distance and carefully conceal. As his ferocity is equal to his craftiness, he is very appropriately termed the Indian Devil.] and others the Wolverine, who is exceeding subtle above the beasts of the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... from my long acquaintance with you, your thoroughness of mental culture, your delicacy of sentiment, and your sound good sense, I was prepared to approve heartily the tone and style of your new work, "The Physical Life of Woman," when its advance sheets were first ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... too delighted at this tractability. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times. She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual. Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... insensitive organ, and accordingly suffers different diseases, such as obstruction, tumors, hardening, softening, abscess, and sometimes flatulence or repletion. The symptoms and treatment of each of these morbid conditions, arising from either heat or cold, are discussed with exasperating thoroughness, and the chapter concludes with the composition and use of various specific remedies of compound character, bearing the impressive titles of Dyasene, Dyacapparis, Dyaceraseos (a mixture of cherry juice, honey, cinnamon, mastic ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson

... no riding in the afternoon; they were in country where the tangle of dogwood and undergrowth was so thick that to take a horse through it meant only lost time, and hindered the thoroughness of the quest. Norah fought her way through, keeping her line just as the men kept theirs; her white coat stained and torn now, her riding skirt showing a hundred rents, her boots cut through in many ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... but the same substances at uniform pressure always at the same temperature, a means is afforded of freeing a drug from impurities by freezing, where sometimes the same result cannot be accomplished with like thoroughness by any other practicable means. Indeed, by this means impurities have been detected where not previously suspected. And Professor Ramsay has detected some new elementary substances even, as constituents of the air, which had previously not been dissociated ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... have worked in the munition factories of both France and of England, and the fact that they are able to do so is due to the genius of surgeons and of scientists. Thoroughness and preparation, coolness in execution and scientific accuracy in all directions is ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we find the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... desirability thorough fact expressly thoroughness faction wish light inconvenient will garden ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... and put some of them into execution. To Lloyd George both the plans and the way they were carried out were half-hearted. To him there was always delay, never the stark action which he believed was everywhere necessary. Decisions were taken too late and were not carried out with promptitude or thoroughness. ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... wrote critical notices for the Nation, New York Tribune, and the New York Times. As I have said, he had a large family to support, and he sought work of the potboiling order; but in this necessary labor he never sacrificed his ideal of thoroughness. A remark that he made to me some while ago has come back with pathetic interest. After telling me what he was doing, how much time his teaching left for outside work, why he did this and that because it brought him money, he said: "I can get along ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... knowledge of the subjects herein treated is most essential, have, as a rule, no leisure for the extended study which the volumes into which the present one might easily be expanded would require. He trusts, however, that brevity will not be found wholly incompatible with thoroughness; and that the fact that much which might have properly been included in the book is omitted, will not be taken as a necessary indication that the conclusions arrived at are ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... sense. For when Goethe, himself searching for a way of bringing the confusing multiplicity of plant phenomena into a comprehensive system, met with the Linnaean system, he was, despite his admiration for the thoroughness and ingenuity of Linnaeus's work, repelled by his method. Thus by way of reaction, his thought was brought into its own creative movement: 'As I sought to take in his acute, ingenious analysis, his apt, appropriate, though often arbitrary laws, a cleft ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... ease of his conquest of Great Poland early in the year 1793 assured the victory of statecraft over chivalry. Morton Eden reported from Berlin that, had the preparations for the Valmy campaign equalled in thoroughness those for the invasion of Poland, events must have gone very differently in Champagne. The circumspection with which the Prussians conducted the siege of Mainz in the summer of 1793, and the long delays of the autumn, have already been noticed. The result of it was that at Christmastide ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... a dry assembling of facts and figures, is an increasing revelation of the imagination, the exactness, the thoroughness, and the great progressive plans of God. Evolution has become a spiritual formula. The scientist looks out over the earth and sky and sun and star. Against his little years are meted out vast prehistoric spans; ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... pleased with the thoroughness of Eben in everything he undertook that he sent a special dispatch to Gen. Washington, commending Pike as one of the best scouts and secret service officers any country ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... point to be noticed about Scott is the thoroughness of his equipment. While never a scholar in the academic sense, he was, along certain chosen lines, a really learned man. He was thirty-four when he published "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1805), the first of his series of metrical romances ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... in regard to the professional cleverness of the architect and the thoroughness of his study, we had best return to the great hall, and pass through a low door in its extreme outer angle, up a few steps into a little room some thirteen feet square, beautifully vaulted, lighted, warmed by a large stone fireplace, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... There can, however, be no doubt that the composition of those two collections of Sutras was preceded by a long series of preparatory literary efforts of which they merely represent the highly condensed outcome. This is rendered probable by the analogy of other /s/astras, as well as by the exhaustive thoroughness with which the Sutras perform their task of systematizing the teaching of the Veda, and is further proved by the frequent references which the Sutras make to the views of earlier teachers. If we consider merely the preserved monuments ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... she received an unexpected visit—from Mr. Brett, her lawyer. He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and had discovered enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him with self-reproach that he had not done so with more thoroughness immediately on her father's death. He had come to tell her all he knew, and talk the matter over with her, that they might agree what proceedings should ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... matter as many who have written of these things would have us believe, or else our book-hunter has been singularly fortunate. For he confesses to having achieved considerable success in this direction. Like all other matters involving care and thoroughness, it takes a good deal of time, and no small amount of trouble; but apart from these considerations there is no reason why any bibliophile endowed with patience and a capacity for taking pains, should not attend to the washing of ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... Life and Works." The author is the director of the English National Portrait Gallery, and has had exceptional opportunities for the examination of Van Dyck's paintings. His work has been done with great thoroughness and care. The volume is richly illustrated with photogravures, and contains complete lists of the painter's works arranged ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... superior elegance and external show than their old associates were in their frank, unrestrained habits. It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, in their radical simplicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type of true gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization they were ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... as possible, he simply relit the candle and went up to the next floor. The arm in his trembled, it is true, and his own tread was often uncertain, but they went on with thoroughness, and after a search revealing nothing they climbed the last flight of stairs to ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... Quincy had studied the annals of Massachusetts with the thoroughness with which he grappled every subject to which he turned his thoughts. His ancestral associations covered the whole period of its history; and all the channels of the local traditions of Boston were open to his enquiring and earnest mind. His History of Harvard University is a monument that will ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... distance of about a mile before it joined the road at a depth of some three hundred feet below the level of the house. Upon reaching the road, which, be it remembered, completely encircled the lake, Escombe had yet another opportunity to note the thoroughness with which the Peruvians did their work, and the inexhaustible patience which they brought to bear upon it. For this road, approximating to one hundred miles in length, was constructed of a uniform width of about one hundred feet, apparently also of uniform gradient—for ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... operation of the organ of vision; though the unravelling of all the minutiae of these processes, may, for the present, baffle the conjoined attacks of the most accomplished physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. To know the anatomy of the human body, with even an approximation to thoroughness, is the work of a life; but as much as is needed for a sound comprehension of elementary physiological truths, may ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... instructive that he was at once invited to give others, and his reputation as a lecturer was soon established. He was a natural orator and story-teller, and he combined with these attractive qualities that of thoroughness and clearness in demonstrations, and although his lectures were two hours long he made them so full of interest that his pupils seldom tired of listening. He believed that he could do greater good to the world by "publicly teaching his art than by practising it," ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... of sitting concluded and Members departed, a figure that once commanded attention of a listening Senate slowly entered from behind the SPEAKER'S chair. It was the senior Member for Birmingham come to take the oath. The action was indicative of his thoroughness and loyalty. No longer were oaths, rolls of Parliament and seats on either Front Bench matters of concern to him. His manifold task was done. His brilliant course was run. But, until he took the oath and signed the roll, he was not de jure a Member of the House of Commons, and his vote might not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... the rest of the place need not tantalise one. In William the Conqueror's time the castle was being built, and the town walls included the two great abbeys for which Caen is chiefly famous. These two magnificent examples of Norman architecture have been restored with great thoroughness so that the marks of antiquity that one might expect are entirely wanting in both buildings. The exterior of the great church of St Etienne disappoints so many, largely from the fact that the gaunt west front is the only view one really has of the building except ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... him to the job that evening by at least twenty minutes. Had the old detective stumbled upon something which Dundee, for all his spectacular thoroughness, had overlooked or had been unable to turn up because ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... rode on Galeotto laughed again. "Body of Satan! There is a thoroughness about you, Agustino. As a hermit you did not spare yourself; and now as a tyrant you do not ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... over the valley and the surrounding country. So, when the chief command decided to take the ridge, they went about the job in a manner thoroughly characteristic of the Scotch commander, Sir Douglas Haig, and his thoroughness was well borne ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... wife's side, and by applying at a police-court for protection she could overwhelm him with shame and ridicule, which would make life intolerable. Impossible to argue with this woman. Say what he might, the fault always seemed his. His wife was simply doing her duty—in a spirit of admirable thoroughness; he, in the eyes of a third person, would appear an unreasonable and violent curmudgeon. Had it not all sprung out of his obstinacy with regard to reading at breakfast? How explain to anyone what he suffered in his ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... on the lines laid under the methods of the modern school, all books being excluded whose authors hold to "mesmeric" theories, or who are even professional magnetizers. The catalogue is, therefore, as strictly scientific as possible, and, being classified with German thoroughness under the different branches of the subject, such as "hystero-hypnotism," "suggestion," "fascination," etc., it will prove a valuable assistance ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... one of the best works which has been put on the market within recent years, showing from start to finish Dr. Webster's well-known thoroughness. The illustrations are also ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... hope to learn something of its nature. On the other hand, the captain who in manoeuvring the vessel through a naval fight should think it necessary to bring the mouldy biscuit into his calculations would very likely lose the battle by reason of the excessive 'thoroughness' of ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... platforms and ladders. Besides these, there are also worked from the signal cabins sixteen sets of points, by means of rod connections and levers. Every particular with regard to the signalling and the shunting has been thought out and executed with the most laudable and painstaking thoroughness and accuracy. And these arrangements decidedly add a somewhat picturesque element to the line, while they also strengthen the effect of reality which is the chief impression given by this ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid—for she felt unequal to coping with German men-servants—wore her arms naked all day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee—the local tea was undrinkable—she still had bare arms; and, examining her more closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... impossible we should ever be taken unprepared; and in all these dispositions, you may be sure the despatch-box was not forgotten. Who was to pick it up, who was to set it down, who was to remain beside it, who was to sleep with it—there was no contingency omitted, all was gone into with the thoroughness of a drill-sergeant on the one hand and a child with a new ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fright in eyeglasses, and ask if they should wear them. Most certainly if the eyes are worn out and failing. An oculist of the very best reputation should be consulted. The fee does not exceed that of the quack, and the eyes are tested with greater thoroughness. Glasses must be chosen with the utmost care, as ill-fitting lenses can make a great deal of trouble. They are worse than no glasses at all. Then, after eyeglasses are put on, they must be changed now and then ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... which, from the beginning excludes the mother tongue of the pupil when he knows no other? it is necessarily confined to dumb show and practice. It is no more to be compared for thoroughness to the Grammatical Method than would be instruction in weaving by a weaver, with the instruction of Master of the Technical School in constructing a piece. Doubtless a person can learn to weave a piece in ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous

... to go, they dragged Laramie—at once as an exhibit and a defi; but Laramie objected to the thoroughness with which his companions essayed to cover the territory, and unfeelingly withdrew from the party to go to bed. Sawdy and Company, undismayed by the defection, continued to haunt the high places until the last sympathizer with Van Horn and Company had been ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... the three best plots in existence (its rivals being 'Oedipus Tyrannus' and 'The Alchemist'). Its excellence depends upon the skill with which it is made subservient to the development of character and the thoroughness with which the working motives of the persons involved have been thought out. Fielding claims—even ostentatiously—that he is writing a history, not a romance; a history not the less true because all the facts are imaginary, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... the city. Only Zion and the Temple held against them. A wall built with the thoroughness of David, the ancient, and solidified by the mortising of Time, ran directly from Hippicus to the Tyropean Valley, joining the tremendous fortifications of Moriah and so cut off Zion from the advance of the army. Securely intrenched within that quarter ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... of the occasion with Western thoroughness and learned a lesson in a few hours which it has taken some men years to learn—that hot rum when taken on a cold and empty stomach must be treated with respect; in fact, a certain amount of coyness is not out of place. Mid was soon being supported on a chair while ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece

... idea that," I answered, amused at the thoroughness with which Bragdon was "doing" Venice. "We can remember what we haven't seen so very ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... to The London Daily Chronicle.)—The bombardment of the Dardanelles forts, according to the latest news, proceeds with success and cautious thoroughness. It is now anticipated that before another two weeks are over the allied fleet will be in the Sea of Marmora, and Constantinople will quickly ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... a sinner may be comparatively a little sinner, and sensibly a great one. There are then two sorts of greatness in sin; greatness by reason of number; greatness by reason of thoroughness of conviction of the horrible nature of sin. In this last sense, he that has but one sin, if such a one could be found, may in his own eyes find himself the biggest sinner in the world. Let this man ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... requirements of the case, and the inference is too readily drawn that nothing else can do so. It need hardly be insisted upon that this inference is a most unfair one, but surely the blame of its being drawn rests in some measure at the door of those whose want of thoroughness has left people under the impression that no more can be said than ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... one associated the tune with its words. Sir Felix mounted the platform; and after sipping a little water (such was our thoroughness that a glassful stood ready for each speaker), began to introduce the lecturer, whose name he mispronounced. The missionary was called Stubbs; and by what mnemonic process Sir Felix converted this into Westmacott I have never been ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... stands, wash-stands, a side-board, hat racks and towel racks, showed what our boys' manual teacher and his boys have been doing. To this should be added a neat fence, built by the boys in the lower grades. The neatness and thoroughness of the work on the furniture greatly exceeds that of the same grade ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various

... intensity of genius. In the spirit of an ancient philosopher he would have denied that pleasures differed in kind, or that by happiness he meant anything but pleasure. He would perhaps have revolted us by his thoroughness. The 'guardianship of his doctrine' has passed into other hands; and now we seem to see its weak points, its ambiguities, its want of exactness while assuming the highest exactness, its one-sidedness, its paradoxical explanation of several of the virtues. ...
— Philebus • Plato

... broad Liberalism and his passionate love of freedom. Gordon entered the office as a boy, and rose to be managing editor. Three of the daughters conducted a ladies' school, which enjoyed an excellent reputation for thoroughness. Katherine, the third daughter, was killed in a railway accident at Syracuse; and the shock seriously affected the health of the father, who died in 1863. The mother had died in ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... answered West; 'see there, and there, and there. There is much to be done yet. Go on and finish it.' Each time the pupil showed it the master said, 'Go on and finish it.' [THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA, by James D. Reid] This was a lesson in thoroughness of work and attention to detail which was not lost on the student. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy, in Somerset House, during the summer of 1813, and West declared that if Morse were to live to his own age he would never make a better composition. The remark is equivocal, but was ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... reception room opens at 9, for the accommodation of those who wish to come early and be first served. Take your seat in the reception room, and I will reach you as rapidly as I can. I never hurry my work at the expense of thoroughness, and when I have a subject under my hands I tell him everything which will do him good, no matter how many others may be waiting. When it comes your turn you may expect the same courtesy. But I never waste time, and if you ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... there is in Japan scarcely such a thing as farming in our sense; it is a system of gardening such as we see in the neighborhood of large cities. Compared with that prevalent throughout the whole country, I have seen nothing equal to it in thoroughness, not ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... at Ichang in December, 1910, and found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress. Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the gentry then decided that as nothing was being done ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... dexterity, or, in the insane pursuit of completion, to immolate his readers under facts; but he comes in the last resort, and as his energy declines, to discard all design, abjure all choice, and, with scientific thoroughness, steadily to communicate matter which is not worth learning. The danger of the idealist is, of course, to become merely null and lose all grip of fact, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the United States we have every reason to expect a rich harvest to be gathered by Mr. W.W. Newell, who is collecting the English folk-tales that still remain current in New England. If his forthcoming book equals in charm, scholarship, and thoroughness his delightful Games and Songs of American Children, the Anglo-American folk-tale will be enriched indeed. A further examination of English nursery rhymes may result in some additions to our stock. I reserve these for separate treatment ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various

... away from Belle Plain he cursed him under his breath with vindictive thoroughness. His own inclination toward evil was never very robust; he could have connived and schemed over a long period of years to despoil Betty of her property, he would have counted this a legitimate field for enterprise; but murder and abduction was quite another ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... motives governing such a course—sentiment, mutual devotion, and the desire to be humored—are inconsistent with the best kind of nursing. If the nurse knows the patient intimately, undue anxiety may interfere with her judgment; thoroughness in routine duties may be hindered by mistaken consideration for the patient; and in an emergency sympathy rather than reason may guide her. A successful nurse must satisfy at least two requirements; she must be capable professionally and also personally ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... down as directed. Some of the scoundrels who were not armed busied themselves with tying the soldiers, and this work the miscreants did with a thoroughness that ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... it for the pleasure of saying it," said he. "It sounded so nice!" And then he knew that her kiss was approval, but of course had no conception of its thoroughness. For her part, she hardly dared to think of the strangeness of the position; she could only rejoice at ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... schools, long classed among the "peculiar institutions" of the country, is notably gaining in scope and efficiency, be the English and Prussians right or not in their claim of greater thoroughness and a higher curriculum. The different States have engaged in a series of competitive experiments for the common good, and cities and counties, in their sphere, labor to the same end. Schools of higher grade ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... confidence was soon strengthened by the news that even the Sugar Act had been repealed, thus practically restoring the condition of affairs before Grenville and Townshend inaugurated their policy of "thoroughness." ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... Following this comes an elaborate and exhaustive chapter on bread-making in all its steps and phases. To this important topic some seventy pages are devoted. And so on through the whole range of viands. Exactness, plainness, thoroughness, seem to characterize all the author's teachings. No point is neglected, and directions are given for both necessary and luxurious dishes. There are chapters on cooking for invalids, the dining-room, care of kitchen utensils, etc. There is also a valuable ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

... revolutions, on the contrary, such as those of the nineteenth century, criticize themselves constantly; constantly interrupt themselves in their own course; come back to what seems to have been accomplished, in order to start over anew; scorn with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of their first attempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in order to enable him to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again, to rise up against them in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before the undefined monster magnitude ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... understand the scene in which men were doing such strange and wonderful things; but Giordano Bruno, Telesio, Campanella, and their fellows, were not men capable of more than short flights, though they might be daring and eager ones. It required more thoroughness, more humble-minded industry, to match the magnitude of the task. And there have been men of universal minds and comprehensive knowledge since Bacon, Leibnitz, Goethe, Humboldt, men whose thoughts were at home everywhere, where there was ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... devastate a neighboring village, but as the men did not return promptly, he started with a troop of horse in the direction they had taken. On the way he was passing through a deep ravine at the bottom of which flowed a tiny brook, when he met his returning troops, and questioning them as to the thoroughness with which their bloody work had been done, found, to his great wrath, that they had spared the church and those who took refuge in its ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... to examine was an identification folder done up in oiled fabric. Thanks to German thoroughness it was amusingly complete. On the first page appeared what I soon discovered to be pedigree for four generations back. The printed form on which all this was minutely filled out made very clear statements from which I determined that my ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... great hall and the chapel, has been restored and refurnished with admirable taste. Carved oak wainscotings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, antique armoires and cabinets and tables, mediaeval tapestries—nothing is wanting. But the thoroughness of the reconstruction emphasizes the wanton folly and wickedness of the devastation ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... of the native American race under the Spanish power in North America has never yet been written with the slightest approach to thoroughness. He who properly qualifies himself for that task will certainly reach the conclusion expressed a number of years ago by the eminent American antiquary and historian, Mr. E. G. Squier, in ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating phases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and let us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to substitute for it the calmness and repose of ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan

... respect the sincerity of convictions so pressed in defiance of a local interest; but a university, whose main emotional appeal is directed towards evoking primarily an enthusiasm for England, cannot be of much use to Nationalist Ireland. Catholics may (and do) respect the thoroughness of the religious teaching, and the strong grip which Protestantism keeps on the university; but a university which inculcates morals through a Protestant religion is not precisely suitable to Catholics. Yet Catholics and Nationalists alike infinitely prefer a university or a college ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... were certain E type boats who worked the Sea of Marmara with thoroughness and humanity; for the two, in English hands, are compatible. The road to their hunting-grounds was strewn with peril, the waters they inhabited were full of eyes that gave them no rest, and what they lost or expended in wear and tear of ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... had reached the Boole Dogge Farm so much rain had fallen as to render the bloodhounds' noses of no account. Still the police were not deterred from beating that neck of land with great thoroughness and energy. But it proved to be the old story of the needle in the haystack. Either they could not find the needle or there was no needle to be found. Of course, they discovered the spring with the broken cup, and the hollow oak, and made sure that it was ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... most in written examinations. On one occasion, in the Moral Philosophy class, which then suffered from the failing health of the professor, the teacher pro tem. appended, as a criticism of an essay of Gilmour's on Utilitarianism, the words, "Wants thoroughness." This was a problem to the diligent student, who tackled his critic at the end of the hour, and apparently had the best of the argument; for he told me afterwards that he had puzzled the judge to explain his own verdict. There was a strong ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... upon his son heredity had played one of her grimmest pranks. The father had had faults, but they were those of his virtues; he had been a strong man, at least, and had "ridden herd" upon his unruly passions with the same thoroughness as over his wild cattle. The result was that he had been universally respected. At first the son seemed destined to be like his father. It was not until "Young Ed" had reached his full manhood that his defects had become recognizable evil tendencies, that his infirmity had developed ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... could. He told me further that Charles had joined Murray at Ashbourne in the small hours, and that their reunited forces had started out for Derby. In all these important matters he was, as is obvious enough now, fully and exactly informed, and I expressed my admiration of his thoroughness. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who has both these qualities—when many, you must mingle some of each, for the temperate ruler is very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in thoroughness and go. ...
— Statesman • Plato

... one of the many places that have been systematically destroyed by the Germans. It is difficult for anyone who has not seen the results with his own eyes to realise the business-like thoroughness which the Hun brings to this congenial task. That a part (and the most beautiful) of the town still stands does not imply that he yielded either to slackness or to aesthetic refinement. True that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... the character of the inflammation and the promptness and thoroughness of the treatment. Acute laminitis may respond to prompt, careful treatment in from ten to fourteen days. Subacute laminitis responds readily to treatment. The prognosis is least ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... attachment to the Hall itself. When Sir John finally resolved to avoid arrest by flight, Enoch had been in two minds about accompanying him, but had finally yielded to the flattering reliance placed by all upon the value and thoroughness of his knowledge as a woodsman. It was largely due to his skill that the party got safely through the great wilderness, and reached Montreal so soon. Since his arrival in Canada, however, things ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... couple of months in Sicily, exploring with some thoroughness the ruins, and making several perilous inland trips, for the country was infested by banditti. One journey from Syracuse through the centre of the island revealed more wretchedness than Irving supposed existed in the world. The half-starved ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... qualities can be tested. We must, indeed, insist on it that the interests of commerce and industry can be helped only when both sides, the vocational demands and the personal function, are examined with equal scientific thoroughness. One aspect alone is unsatisfactory. It would of course be possible to confine the examination to the individual mental traits, and then theoretically to determine for which economic tasks the presence of these qualities would be useful ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... thought, hands clasped behind him. "It will need consideration," said he. "But it may serve, and I can count upon Green. He is satisfied that Caryll befooled him at Maidstone, and that he kept the papers he carried despite the thoroughness of Green's investigations. Moreover, he was handled with some roughness by Caryll. For that and the other matter he asks redress—thirsts for it. He's a very willing tool, as I ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... particular appeared to interest him, so much so that he entered the room and proceeded to examine it with great thoroughness, taking the utmost care to replace everything ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... waist-deep with snow! Besides we beat through the bush everywhere, and there wasn't a track, nor broken twig, where they could have passed." His torn clothes bore evidence to the thoroughness of that search. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... "Neatness, thoroughness, dispatch, everything shipshape, no loose ends flying—that's my style, Roy. Now there was neatness and dispatch about my running you out of Freeport when I found your presence there inconvenient. Don't you think there was? Eh, you great fool? You pulled my chestnuts out of the fire ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... has been directed with a systematic thoroughness and excellence that surpassed any previous work of its kind. The Inspector General's Department has risen to the highest standards, and throughout has ably assisted commanders in the enforcement of discipline. The able personnel of the Judge ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... subject and have put him into an impregnable position. As it was, he had but to imagine himself there and forget his wife's opinion, which he did not find any difficulty in doing. The wheels were those of Colonel Pepperell's carriage; put together with English thoroughness, it had all the weight and unwieldiness of vehicles of that time. Lady Dacre, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Eveleigh descended from it; they had been spending the morning together. Sir Temple, Edmonson, Bulchester, and their host, on horseback, came galloping up as the carriage stopped. They had ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... the young plants in the seed-bed a few days before transplanting. Spray again within a week after the plants are set in the field, and repeat at intervals of ten days or two weeks until the fruit is full grown. Success in spraying depends mainly on the thoroughness of the work. The aim should be to cover every leaf with a fine mist. Do not drench the foliage but pass to the next plant before the drops run together and off the leaf. Use a nozzle that gives a fine spray and maintain a high ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... for taste, smell, muscular sense, touch, and memory cannot be made with much thoroughness or satisfaction till two years of age, though observation will show a recognition by taste and smell of that which is agreeable and that which is disagreeable. Accurate tests of hearing cannot be made till the child is three or four, but it is possible when he is twelve months old to ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... out instructions with a thoroughness and dispatch that upset the entire office force. He had been told to clean things up, and he took an unholy joy in interpreting the order in military terms. Never before had there been such a drastic ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... picturesque to you. Supposing an enemy ready to drop on us, we had to keep out of his sight while watching for him, and also to ferret out sentry posts which for the same reason had been pretty carefully hidden, and to which our directions were the vaguest. It was all done with thoroughness and care; we had the usual bogs to cross and brooks to jump; we found our men in hollows, thickets, and even in trees; and finally to our joy (for the day was hot and we were mostly sleepy from yesterday) we were brought home, fed, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French



Words linked to "Thoroughness" :   painstakingness



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