a. [f. L. exhaust- ppl. stem of exhaurīre (see EXHAUST v.) + -IVE.]
1. Tending to exhaust or drain of strength, resources, etc.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. IV. viii. 278. The fierce and exhaustive contentions which the rival strangers in Carnatic were waging against one another.
1868. J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., I. 98. In what imminent peril the revenues … were from the exhaustive squandering … of the Court.
1874. Motley, Barneveld, II. xii. 70. The parasites who fed on the Queen-Regent were exhaustive of the French exchequer.
2. Characterized by exhausting a subject, etc.; leaving no part unexamined or unconsidered; complete, comprehensive.
1786–9. Bentham, Wks. (1843), II. 540. Proceeding … upon the exhaustive plan.
1798. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XXV. 585. His transcendental deduction of the categories of criticism [is] neither discretive nor exhaustive.
1813. Edin. Rev., XXII. 23. His method of handling the subject … has been termed exhaustive.
1853. Trench, Proverbs, 125. The things of friends are in common. Where does this find its exhaustive fulfilment, but in the Communion of Saints?
1878. Gladstone, Prim. Homer, 127. I shall attempt in this limited work no exhaustive survey.
b. (Cf. EXHAUSTION 5 a.)
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 405, note. By the exhaustive method, therefore, we see that the visit dwelt on in Gal. ii. must have been the third.
