Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A searching thoroughly; minute search or inquiry.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A thorough searching; a minute inquiry or scrutiny.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rare A thorough searching; a minute inquiry or scrutiny.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin perscrūtātiō, from the past participle stem of perscrūtor.

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Examples

  • I want the world to take an attentive look at one Walter S. Halliwell, to make a labored perscrutation of this priorient social pewee, this arbiter eligantarium of corn-fed aristocracy, this Beau Brummel of the border, for though Argus had a compound microscope glued to his every eye he might never look upon the like again.

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 10 1905

  • Such guessing, visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the very clothmakers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, 'and more than once it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; and then, This one and That other.'

    Past and Present Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • Such guessing, visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the very clothmakers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, 'and more than once it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; and then, This one, and That other.'

    Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • -- At last compliance, willing to be royally gracious, said, Well it would consider -- Though there was but little hope -- Nothing it had heard had any cogency of perscrutation -- But, in fine, it would be clement, and consider.

    Anna St. Ives Thomas Holcroft 1777

Comments

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  • A thorough investigation or examination; careful scrutiny.

    January 28, 2008

  • It sounds painful.

    January 29, 2008

  • Dangity flup the ho-go, that's exactly what I thought when I saw this word, rt.

    October 26, 2008

  • I once had one of those on my ... never mind.

    October 27, 2008

  • Thanks for (not) sharing, A. ;->

    October 28, 2008