in detail

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in detail

1. (idiomatic) Thoroughly; including every detail; with all particulars.

   I do not understand it; would you please explain it to me in detail.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     When this conversation was repeated in detail within the hearing of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been a country storekeeper.

2. (military) By engaging small sections of an enemy army rather than fighting a single pitched battle against the entire enemy force.

   Darius defeated the rebels in detail.

   • 1855, Walter Keating Kelly, The History of Russia: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Compiled from the Most Authentic Sources, Including the Works of Karamsin, Tooke, and Ségur, page 175:

     Macdonald might easily have destroyed them in detail could he have fallen upon them at once; but the time he spent in reorganising his army in Tuscany, and in concerting measures with Moreau, was well employed by Suvarof in promptly concentrating his forces.

• into detail

• tailed in, nailed it, intailed