Word.ws English Dictionary

left no stone unturned

left no stone unturned is the simple past and past participle of leave no stone unturned.

Meaning of leave no stone unturned

Verb

leave no stone unturned (third-person singular simple present leaves no stone unturned, present participle leaving no stone unturned, simple past and past participle left no stone unturned)

  1. (idiomatic) To search or investigate thoroughly.
    • “This case of police torture and murder is shocking. But this is not the first case and it is unlikely to be the last case until and unless the police conduct serious interrogations and investigations and leave no stones unturned,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.2021 August 25, Tassanee Vejpongsa, “Video sparks arrest of Thai police in drug suspect's death”, in The Washington Post, retrieved 26 Aug 2021
  2. (figuratively) To perform a task carefully and thoroughly, not missing any step.
    • [He] left unturned no stone / To make my guilt appear, and hide his own.1697, Virgil, “The Second Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

Questions about left no stone unturned

What is left no stone unturned the simple past and past participle of?
Left no stone unturned is the simple past and past participle of leave no stone unturned.

Words near left no stone unturned in the dictionary

  1. left main
  2. left mains
  3. Left May
  4. left much to be desired
  5. left no crumbs
  6. left no stone unturned
  7. left no trace
  8. left nullspace
  9. left nullspaces
  10. left off
  11. left on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left no stone unturned (page history and authors); leave no stone unturned (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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