Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
comprehensive, complete, comprehensible (adjs.)
Comprehensive means “large in scope, all-inclusive, fully detailed, containing all or much of something”; complete means “lacking nothing”; comprehensible means “understandable, intelligible.” Comprehensive also has two widely used specialized senses, extensions of “all-inclusive”: the comprehensive insurance policy, which covers a specified variety of risks in a single policy; and comprehensive examinations (also called comprehensives), which are examinations given at the end of undergraduate study or during or at the end of graduate study that cover an entire field of knowledge and typically are the final examinations for a degree program.
