comprehensive, a.
(kɒmprɪˈhɛnsɪv)
[ad. L. comprehensīv-us, f. comprehens- ppl. stem of comprehendĕre: see comprehend and -ive. Cf. mod.F. compréhensif, -ive.]
1. a. gen. Characterized by comprehension; having the attribute of comprising or including much; of large content or scope.
| 1614 Selden Title Hon. Pref., Then is the Ciuilians definition of it enough comprehensiue. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 213 The comprehensiue whole, is parted betweene the things comprehended therein. 1655–60 Stanley Hist. Philos. (1701) 3 His Aim is more Comprehensive. 1709 Berkeley Th. Vision Ded., The most noble, pleasant, and comprehensive of all the senses. 1809–10 Coleridge Friend (1865) 21 Happiness (or, to use a..more comprehensive term, solid well-being). 1849 Ruskin Sev. Lamps 1 The reply was as concise as it was comprehensive—‘know what you have to do, and do it’. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 124 A comprehensive survey of the philosophy of Plato. |
b. Inclusive of; embracing.
| a 1657 R. Loveday Lett. (1663) 244 [A] Tongue..comprehensive of such rich and rational expressions. 1691 Ray Creation i. (1704) 190 Plant thee Orchards..in such order as may be..most comprehensive of Plants. 1720 Gordon & Trenchard Indep. Whig No. 22 (1728) 206 Charity it self, which is comprehensive of all the Vertues. 1839 Bailey Festus (1854) 132 O Heaven..comprehensive of all life. |
c. Sometimes with the enlarged sense: Containing much in small compass, compendious.
| 1662 Pepys Diary 17 Aug., The Lord's Prayer..In Whose comprehensive words we sum up all our imperfect desires. 1684 Earl of Roscommon Ess. Transl. Verse 52 But who did ever in French Authors see The comprehensive English Energy? |
d. Designating a secondary school or a system of education which provides for children of all levels of intellectual and other ability (see quots.). Also ellipt. as n., a school of this kind or (occas.) a pupil attending one.
| 1947 Min. of Educ. Circular No. cxliv. 1/2 Combinations of two or more types of secondary education are often referred to as bilateral, multilateral or comprehensive. Ibid. 2/1 A comprehensive school means one which is intended to cater for all the secondary education of all the children in a given area without an organisation in three sides. 1955 Ann Reg. 1954 13 The L.C.C. had adopted the educational policy of the so-called comprehensive school, where all, whatever their standards, were to be educated together up to the age of 15. 1955 Times 20 May 11/5 A comprehensive school is intended to recruit all the boys, or girls, from a given area at the age of 11 and of these not more than one in five will be of grammar school standard. 1958 Spectator 27 June 833/1 Comprehensives, scrubbed and solemn in suits. 1958 Observer 30 Nov. 19/5 Pupils shunted off to the posh new comprehensives. 1959 Punch 16 Sept. 169/2 His son is at a Public School..His younger daughters both attend The local Comprehensive. 1965 New Statesman 9 Apr. 567/1 As for the public schools, you can't even suggest that the grammar schools be merged with the comprehensives without losing all the marginal seats in Bristol. |
2. Characterized by mental comprehension: a. that grasps or understands (a thing) fully.
| 1628 Donne Serm. 1 Cor. xiii. 12 A comprehensive knowledge of God it [our knowledge] cannot be. a 1641 Bp. R. Montagu Acts & Mon. (1642) 27 Comprehensive knowledge..is no part of our Indowments. 1677 Gale Crt. Gentiles II. iv. 294 Comprehensive knowledge is that whereby the whole of an object, so far as it is intelligible, is knowen. 1784 Cowper Task v. 251 A comprehensive faculty that grasps Great purposes with ease. |
b. Embracing many things, broad in mental grasp, sympathies, or the like.
| 1700 Dryden Pref. to Fables Wks. (Globe) 501 He [Chaucer] must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature. 1721 Lett. fr. Mist's Jrnl. (1722) II. 126 These very philosophical comprehensive Men. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India Pref. 17 note, The superiority of the comprehensive student over the partial observer. a 1843 Southey Inscript. xxxii, One comprehensive mind All overseeing and pervading all. |
3. Logic. Intensive.
| 1725 Watts Logic i. vi. §9 (heading) Of a comprehensive Conception of Things, and of Abstraction. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers v. i. Wks. 390/2 It is an axiom in logic—that the more extensive any general term is, it is the less comprehensive. 1850 Baynes New Analytic 72 note, [The reasoning] is comprehensive or intensive, for it proceeds from the concrete to the abstract, from a greater totality of attribute to a less. |