/həʊl/, [həʊɫ], [hɒʊɫ]
OriginFrom Middle English hol, hole (“healthy, unhurt, whole”), from Old English hāl (“healthy, safe”), from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, safe, sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ilos (“healthy, whole”).
The spelling with wh-, introduced in the 15th century, represents a pronunciation with an excrescent /w/ that failed to survive in the standard language (compare one, whore).
Cognates
Compare West Frisian hiel, Low German heel/heil, Dutch heel, German heil, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hel, Norwegian Nynorsk heil; also Welsh coel (“omen”), Breton kel (“omen, mention”), Old Prussian kails (“healthy”), Old Church Slavonic цѣлъ (cělŭ, “healthy, unhurt”). Related to hale, health, hail, hallow, heal, and holy.
- Entire, undivided.
“I ate a whole fish.”
“During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over”
“Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. […] He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking”
- Used as an intensifier.
“I brought a whole lot of balloons for the party. She ate a whole bunch of french fries.”
“There, a huge blue heron stands sentry like a statue, eye on the surface, waiting for his next meal to wriggle by. A lone grassy hill overlooks it all, well above the flood line, big enough to pitch a”
“I'm thinking, thanks a whole fuck of a lot, Robert. You could have laid that on me weeks ago.”
- Sound, uninjured, healthy.
“He is of whole mind, but the same cannot be said about his physical state.”
“Here, with one balm for many fevers found, / Whole of an ancient evil, I sleep sound.”
- From which none of its constituents has been removed.
“whole wheat; whole milk”
- As yet unworked.
- colloquialIn entirety; entirely; wholly.
“I ate a fish whole!”
“That’s a whole other story.”
- Something complete, without any parts missing.
“This variety of fascinating details didn't fall together into an enjoyable, coherent whole.”
- An entirety.
Formswholer(comparative) · more whole(comparative) · wholest(superlative) · most whole(superlative) · hole(alternative, obsolete) · wholes(plural)