Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use all in a sentence

40 example sentences · determiner, pronoun, adverb

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). Example: “All contestants must register for the footrace: we've arranged numbers for them all.”

Examples of all by meaning

determinerEvery individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be...

  • 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.
  • All flesh is originally grass.

determinerThroughout 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.

determinerOnly; alone; nothing but.

  • He's all talk; he never puts his ideas into practice.

pronounEverything.

  • Some gave all they had.
  • She knows all and sees all.
  • All of Jones’s maneuvers to trounce Kennedy.

pronounEveryone.

  • We all enjoyed the movie.
  • I've got three children, of whom all are studying medicine.

pronounThe only thing(s).

  • All that was left was a small pile of ash.

pronounUsed after who, what, where, how and similar words, either without changing their meaning, or indicating that one...

  • 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...
  • "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
  • "Where all did he go?2002, Richard Haddock, Arkalalah, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 73

adverbWholly; entirely; completely; totally.

  • The parson, all unaware, dully pursued his calling, perched above the exquisite derision of their glances.1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 127

More sentences with all

  • He’s been crowing all day about winning the game of cards.From the entry crow
  • The expedition followed the river all the way to the head.From the entry head
  • He was all bent over complaining of pains in the abdomen.From the entry abdomen
  • The policy covers all belongings and other personal things that somebody can carry about them.From the entry about
  • I don’t know all the theoretical abracadabra about how it works, I’m only its pilot.From the entry abracadabra
  • He went all honest on me, making me listen to his confession.From the entry on
  • Today is the day we'll fix this once and for all.From the entry today
  • All they could ever do was to shout abusive inanities at me.From the entry abusive
  • Little by little I pushed the snake into the basket, until finally all of it was in.From the entry in
  • Intersex babies account for roughly one per cent of all births.From the entry birth
  • In the end, all of our hard work amounted to zero.From the entry zero
  • The electromagnetic field does not drop all of the way to zero before a reversal.From the entry zero
  • There are, in addition to all the red socks, a number that don’t suit me either.From the entry number
  • You can take the number 8 (bus) all the way to the airport.From the entry number
  • Not all Trekkies go around speaking Klingon and making endless references to the original Star Trek series.From the entry trekkie
  • Well, well, well, it seems the silent one does have a voice, after all.From the entry one
  • All the threes will go in Mrs. Smith's class, while I'll take the fours and fives.From the entry three
  • All the fives are over there in the corner, next to the fours.From the entry five
  • All messages on this platform are doubly encrypted to increase security.From the entry encrypt
  • I made the point that we all had an interest to protect.From the entry point
  • All unemployments, seasonal, frictional, cyclical, classical, whatever, mean that you're out of work.From the entry unemployment
  • All the beds of the hotel are currently occupied, but we have a free room tomorrow.From the entry currently
  • Now all the children have grown up and left, the house is very quiet.From the entry now
  • Now! Fire all we've got while the enemy is in reach!From the entry now

Meaning of all

  1. 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).
  2. determiner Throughout the whole of (a stated period of time; generally used with units of a day or longer).
  3. determiner Only; alone; nothing but.

Full definition of all

Questions about all in a sentence

How do you use all in a sentence?
All is used as a determiner, pronoun and adverb. For example: “All contestants must register for the footrace: we've arranged numbers for them all.”
What is a short sentence with all?
“"Where all did he go?”
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).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use all in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/all. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.