Whole

//həʊl// adj, adv, noun, slang

adj, adv, noun, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Something complete, without any parts missing.

    "This variety of fascinating details didn't fall together into an enjoyable, coherent whole."

  2. 2
    an assemblage of parts that is regarded as a single entity wordnet
  3. 3
    An entirety.
  4. 4
    all of something including all its component elements or parts wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Entire, undivided.

    "I ate a whole fish."

  2. 2
    Entire, undivided.; Used as an intensifier.

    "I brought a whole lot of balloons for the party. She ate a whole bunch of french fries."

  3. 3
    Sound, uninjured, healthy.

    "He is of whole mind, but the same cannot be said about his physical state."

  4. 4
    From which none of its constituents has been removed.

    "whole wheat; whole milk"

  5. 5
    As yet unworked.
Adjective
  1. 1
    including all components without exception; being one unit or constituting the full amount or extent or duration; complete wordnet
  2. 2
    (of siblings) having the same parents wordnet
  3. 3
    acting together as a single undiversified whole wordnet
  4. 4
    exhibiting or restored to vigorous good health wordnet
  5. 5
    not injured or harmed wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    In entirety; entirely; wholly. colloquial

    "I ate a fish whole!"

Adverb
  1. 1
    to a complete degree or to the full or entire extent; Completely or entirely wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
entirehaleintactundivideda certainabsolute

Example

More examples

"It almost scared me not to see you online for a whole day."

Etymology

From 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.

Related phrases

20 whole dollarsa whole 'nothera whole notheran eye for an eye makes the whole world blindas a wholecommittee of the wholedouble wholedouble whole notego the whole hoggo the whole pilego whole hoghave one's whole life ahead of one

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