Word.ws English Dictionary

on the whole

on the whole prepositional phrase: for the most part; apart from some insignificant details.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) For the most part; apart from some insignificant details.
    • The language was wrong for the period, but, on the whole, I enjoyed the film.
    • Davis had a ball lodged in his body, and his right hand shot off; but on the whole, he seems to have been less damaged than his companion.1849, Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Monday

on the whole meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Malayalam

on the whole in Tamil

மொத்தத்தில்

on the whole in Bengali

অধিকাংশ ক্ষেত্রে

on the whole in Telugu

for the most part
మొత్తమ్మీద mottammīda

on the whole in Malayalam

overall, all thing considered, for the most part
ആകപ്പാടെ, ഒക്കപ്പാടെ, മൊത്തത്തിൽ, സാമാന്യമായി, ആകെക്കൂടി, എല്ലാം കൂടി
More languagesFewer languages
on the whole in Kannada
ಒಟ್ಟಿನಮೇಲೆ, ಒಟ್ಟಾರೆ
on the whole in Persian
به طور کلی be tor-e kolli

Examples of on the whole in a sentence

  • But she found him interesting on the whole.1910, E. M. Forster, chapter 5, in Howards End:
  • Maidan was absolutely peaceful, Tahrir saw some unrest but was still peaceful on the whole.2012 January 18, Simon Shuster, “The Anti-Putin Movement: An Interview with the Blogger in Chief”, in Time, retrieved 18 Aug 2013:

Synonyms of on the whole

Forms of on the whole

alternative formupon the whole
alternative form (archaic)upon the matter
alternative form (archaic)upon the whole matter

Questions about on the whole

What does on the whole mean?
On the whole means for the most part; apart from some insignificant details.
What is on the whole in Tamil?
On the whole in Tamil is மொத்தத்தில். See On the whole meaning in Tamil.
How do you use on the whole in a sentence?
But she found him interesting on the whole.
What part of speech is on the whole?
On the whole is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on the whole in the dictionary

  1. on the watch
  2. on the water cart
  3. on the water wagon
  4. on the way
  5. on the way out
  6. on the whole
  7. on the wind
  8. on the wing
  9. on the wings of the wind
  10. on the wrong foot
  11. on the wrong side of history

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the whole (page history and authors); on the whole (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); on the whole (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); on the whole (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); on the whole (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: En-au-on the whole.ogg.

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