COMPREHENSIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Comprehensive

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/kˌɑmprihˈɛnsɪv/ Listen

adjective

Comprehensive adj.

Including much; comprising many things; having a wide scope or a full view. "A very comprehensive definition." "Large and comprehensive idea."

Having the power to comprehend or understand many things. "His comprehensive head."

(Zool.) Possessing peculiarities that are characteristic of several diverse groups. Note: The term is applied chiefly to early fossil groups which have a combination of structures that appear in more fully developed or specialized forms in later groups. Synthetic, as used by Agassiz, is nearly synonymous.

Synonyms: Extensive; wide; large; full; compendious.

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Etymology of 'Comprehensive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Comprehensive" Quotes from Famous Books

... A comprehensive scheme of National Education is seized and half-throttled by the Repair party. "Oh! utilize what there is; improve on and tack to the denominational system; avail yourself of the jealousy of sects; see what a grand building that has already erected! ...

— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... as not necessary; as the belief of the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, &c., which, for want of time, I omit to speak particularly to, and the rather, because I understand this great article of believing the Son of God died for the sins of men is comprehensive of all others, and is that from whence all other articles may ...

— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan

... reasonings and notions, taken from the beaten circle of ordinary experience, that is admirably suited to the narrow capacities of some, and to the laziness of others. But this advantage is in a great measure lost, when a painful, comprehensive survey of a very complicated matter, and which requires a great variety of considerations, is to be made; when we must seek in a profound subject, not only for arguments, but for new materials of argument, their measures and their method of arrangement; when we must go out of the sphere of our ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... constantly been mistaken for death. While it endures, the temperature falls, the respiration disappears, the heartbeat is indistinguishable—in fact, it is death, save that it is evanescent. Even the most comprehensive mind"—here he closed his eyes and simpered—"could hardly conceive a universal outbreak ...

— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence ...

— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

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