Word.ws English Dictionary

all

/ɔːl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Multicultural London English/u(ɫ)/

all determiner: every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable).

all: every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase...
Image: Dcoetzee, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Determiner

all

  1. Every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable).
    • All contestants must register for the footrace: we've arranged numbers for them all.
    • List all books of which you were the sole or co-author.
  2. Throughout the whole of (a stated period of time; generally used with units of a day or longer).
    • The store is open all day and all night.
    • I’ve been working on this all year.
  3. Only; alone; nothing but.
    • He's all talk; he never puts his ideas into practice.
    • I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  4. (obsolete) Any.
    • without all remedyc. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Pronoun

all

  1. Everything.
    • Some gave all they had.
    • She knows all and sees all.
  2. Everyone.
    • A good time was had by all (of you/us/them).
    • We all enjoyed the movie.
  3. The only thing(s).
    • All that was left was a small pile of ash.
    • We ate potatoes and ziti .... that's all.
  4. (India, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Southern US, South Midland US) Used after who, what, where, how and similar words, either without changing their meaning, or indicating that one expects that they cover more than one element, e.g. that "Who all attended?" is more than one person. (Some dialects only allow this to follow some words and not others.)
    • Q. Now, then, when you started to go to stake the claims, who all went along?1904 October 10, Shea v. Nilima, [US] Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in 1905, Reports Containing the Cases Determined in All the Circuits from the Organization of the Courts, page 266
    • "I mean, you could have called us—collect, o'course—jes' to let us know how-all it's a-goin'."1998, Paul D. Staudohar, editor, Football's Best Short Stories, section 107

Adverb

all (not comparable)

  1. (childish, emphatic, intensifier, sometimes) Wholly; entirely; completely; totally.
    • She was sitting all alone.
      It suddenly went all quiet.
      I'm all done, Mommy! I did it all by myself.
    • 'Tis mystery all: th'Immortal dies1738, Charles Wesley, “And can it be that I should gain”, in John Wesley, editor, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Charlestown: Lewis Timothy, →OCLC
  2. Apiece; each.
    • The score was 30 all when the rain delay started.
  3. (degree) So much; used with "the" and a comparative.
    • Don't want to go? All the better since I lost the tickets.
    • If he leave the company, I'll have to work all the harder.
  4. (obsolete, poetic) Even; just.
    • All as his straying flock he fed.1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton, →OCLC
    • A damsel lay deploring / All on a rock reclined.1715, John Gay, What D’ye Call It?, London: Bernard Lintott, →OCLC
  5. A quotative particle, compare like.
    • She was all, “Whatever.”
    • So I go to my stepdad and me and him got into a fight. And I was all "Well, I don't got to stay here," and he says, "No you don't, get out of here," and I go "I will, I hate you!" And I ran.1991, Elliott Currie, “Cindi Richardson”, in Dope and Trouble: Portraits of Delinquent Youth, Pantheon Books, page 121

Noun (1)

all (countable and uncountable, plural alls)

  1. Everything that one is capable of.
    • She gave her all, and collapsed at the finish line.
  2. (countable) The totality of one's possessions.
    • she therefore ordered Jenny to pack up her alls and begone, for that she was determined she should not sleep that night within her walls. […] I packed up my little all as well as I could, and went off.
  3. Everything in general; all that matters.
    • I will die fighting for my people, because my people are all.
    • All are one and one is all.1992, Bruce Coville, My Teacher Flunked the Planet
    Synonyms:
    all in all

Conjunction

all

  1. (obsolete) Although.
    • And those two froward sisters, their faire loves, / Came with them eke, all they were wondrous loth.1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, volume 2, London: Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Adjective

all

  1. (Pennsylvania, dialectal) All gone; dead.
    • The butter is all.

Noun (2) capitalized: ALL

ALL (countable and uncountable, plural ALLs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of anterolateral ligament.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
    • In children, leukemia was most commonly ALL—lymphoblastic leukemia—and was almost always swiftly lethal.2010, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, Fourth Estate (2011), page 17

Proper noun capitalized: ALL

ALL

  1. (UK, abbreviation, acronym, historical) Acronym of Alliance for Local Living.

all meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

all in Hindi

every individual of the given class
सब sab, सारा sārā
throughout the whole of (a stated period of time)
सारा sārā

all in Tamil

every individual of the given class
எல்லா ellā, அனைத்து aṉaittu

all in Marathi

every individual of the given class
सर्व sarva, सगळे sagḷe

all in Urdu

every individual of the given class
سب sab, سارا sārā
More languagesFewer languages
all in Bengali
সকল śokol
all in Telugu
అందరూ andarū, అన్నీ annī, సమస్తము samastamu, సర్వము sarvamu
all in Malayalam
എല്ലാം ellāṁ, എപ്പോഴും eppōḻuṁ
all in Punjabi
ਸਾਰਾ sārā, ਸਭ sabh
all in Gujarati
બધું badhũ
all in Odia
ସବୁ sabu
all in Sanskrit
सर्व sárva, विश्व viśva
all in Assamese
সকলো xokolü, আটাই atai
all in Tagalog
lahat, buo
all in Arabic
كُلّ kull, جَمِيع jamīʕ, كل kull
all in Malay
semua, sepanjang, se- -an
all in Indonesian
semua, segenap, seluruh, sepanjang
all in Persian
همه hame, سراسر sarâsar, تمام tamâm
all in Thai
ทั้งหมด táng-mòt
all in Vietnamese
mọi
all in Myanmar
အားလုံး a:lum:

Examples of all in a sentence

  • All flesh is originally grass.
  • All (the) three of my nephews adore classical music.
  • All of Jones’s maneuvers to trounce Kennedy.
  • All is not well at home lately.
  • Those who think they know it all are annoying to those of us who do.
  • I've got three children, of whom all are studying medicine.

All 40 example sentences with all

Synonyms of all

Forms of all

Determiner
alternative alternativea'
alternative form (obsolete)al
Noun
pluralalls
pluralALLs

Plural of all: alls

Origin of all

From Middle English all, from Old English eall, from Proto-West Germanic *all, from Proto-Germanic *allaz, of uncertain origin but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“all”). Cognates Cognate with Scots a, a', aa, aal, aw (“all”), Yola aal, al, all, aul (“all”), North Frisian aal, aale, ale, ali, åle (“all”), Saterland Frisian al (“already”), aal (“all”), West Frisian alle (“all”), Dutch al (“all”), German and Luxembourgish all (“all”), Vilamovian oły, ołły (“all”), Yiddish אַלע (ale, “all”), Danish al (“all”), Faroese and Icelandic allur (“all”), Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish all (“all”), Norwegian Nynorsk aillj, all (“all”), Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌻𐍃 (alls, “all”); also Breton and Welsh holl (“all”), Cornish oll (“all”), Irish alig, eile, uile, uileag, uilig (“all”), Manx ooilley (“all”), Scottish Gaelic uile, uileag (“all”), Lithuanian aliái (“every”), Armenian ողջ (oġǰ, “entire, whole”). The dialectal sense “all gone” is a calque of German alle. The use in who all, where all etc. also has equivalents in German (see alles).

Words formed from all

Phrases with all

171 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with all

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about all

What does all mean?
All means every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable).
What is all in Hindi?
All in Hindi is सब (sab), सारा (sārā). See All meaning in Hindi.
How do you use all in a sentence?
All flesh is originally grass.
What part of speech is all?
All can be a determiner, a pronoun, an adverb or a noun.
How do you pronounce all?
All is pronounced /ɔːl/ (UK).

Words near all in the dictionary

  1. alkynyloxindole
  2. alkynyloxindoles
  3. alkynyls
  4. alkyphenol
  5. alkyphenols
  6. all
  7. all aboard
  8. all ages
  9. all alone
  10. all along
  11. all and some

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all (page history and authors); ALL (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-all.wav, En-us-all.ogg.

Cite this entry: “all.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/all. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.