comprehensive

Pluralcomprehensives

1. 1
   adjective

   Broad or complete in coverage, taking in a large proportion of what could be included.

   The committee produced a comprehensive report on housing conditions across the region.

   Her comprehensive knowledge of the subject impressed everyone on the panel.

   Similarthorough, extensive, exhaustive, complete, broad

   Oppositelimited, partial, incomplete, narrow

   Note

   A word about reach rather than depth. It came through French from Late Latin comprehēnsīvus, built on comprehendō, the verb behind comprehend, so a comprehensive study takes its whole subject in. It sits naturally before nouns of inquiry and planning, such as research, analysis or a timetable. Although it can mean complete, it still grades: more comprehensive, most comprehensive. The school noun is this adjective left standing once school dropped away.

2. 2
   nounBritishcountable

   A state-funded secondary school in Britain that admits students of all abilities without selection by examination.

   He teaches science at a large comprehensive on the edge of the city.

   The reforms changed how comprehensives are funded across the country.

   Note

   A clipping of the full phrase comprehensive school, and marked as British. Outside Britain the full phrase is the safer choice. The clipped noun is countable, as in a large comprehensive or the plural comprehensives. It can also describe schools abroad: Peter Wilby, writing in The Guardian Weekly in 2013, says Finnish children attend comprehensives until the age of 16.

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