all-encompassing
5 synonyms and 4 antonyms for all-encompassing, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Adjective — Including or covering everything relevant, leaving nothing out.
Synonyms
Everyday swaps
Common words most readers know — safe in any writing.
Less common
Still standard English, but they carry more weight.
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
all-embracing
Antonyms
How to use all-encompassing
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
all-encompassing view
all-encompassing love
all-encompassing solution
all-encompassing fear
Neutral to slightly emphatic. Common in reviews, business writing and emotional description.
Frequently asked questions
Is all-encompassing hyphenated?
Yes. It is standardly written with a hyphen before the noun it modifies and usually keeps the hyphen after a verb too — the strategy is all-encompassing. Writing it as two separate words is treated as an error by most style guides.
What is the difference between all-encompassing and comprehensive?
Comprehensive is the neutral, factual word for covering everything necessary. All-encompassing is stronger and often emotional, suggesting something so total that it dominates — an all-encompassing grief, an all-encompassing obsession.
Can all-encompassing be negative?
It can. Applied to feelings, workloads or systems of control, it often implies that nothing has been left free of it, which is usually unwelcome.
