Fine-toothed

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Having small teeth placed closely together (of a comb, brush, etc.).
  2. 2
    Of a search, study, analysis, etc., very exhaustive or thorough. figuratively

    "Of course Obama has a fine-toothed understanding of American racism but perhaps because of his unique parentage and history, he has cast himself as the conciliatory middle child, preferring to leave unsaid truths that might inflame, and insulating those said in various layers of cant."

Adjective
  1. 1
    having fine teeth set close together wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
fine-tooth

Example

More examples

"You can use a fine-toothed comb to check for nits."

Etymology

From fine + toothed.

Related phrases

fine-toothed comb

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.