Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use altogether in a sentence

40 example sentences · adverb, noun

Altogether means completely, wholly, or without exception. Example: “Police did not seem altogether satisfied with my alibi.”

Examples of altogether by meaning

adverbCompletely, wholly, or without exception.

  • Police did not seem altogether satisfied with my alibi.
  • And wordy attacks against slavery drew sneers from observers which were not altogether undeserved.1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 24

adverbOn the whole; with everything considered.

  • Altogether, I'm sorry it happened.
  • The on-field challenge was altogether more straightforward.2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England 5, Iceland 0: under 21 match report”, in The Telegraph

adverbWith everything included.

  • Altogether, your bill comes to $6.99.

adverbAn intensifier: without doubt, clearly.

  • It was a great game altogether.
  • That took altogether too much time.

nounA state of nakedness.

  • Hearing that his wife was posing in the altogether for the great Spanish satirist, the Duke of Alba swore that he would paint Goya's picture in Goya's blood.1930 August 4, “Prix de Rome”, in Time
  • Last week, a Cleveland news anchor, Sharon Reed, was caught on camera stripping nude and joining a gaggle of other people in the altogether.2004 November 25, David Carr, “When a TV Talking Head Becomes a Talking Body”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Sep 2008

More sentences with altogether

  • The news report stemmed the tide of concerned calls, but didn't stop them altogether.From the entry stem the tide
  • The insect had a distinctly musciform appearance, although its shiny, golden colouration was altogether more agreeable.From the entry musciform
  • The sweepingness of the reforms was altogether unexpected.From the entry sweepingness
  • I have given up planning altogether, relying instead on the chapter of accidents to reveal itself as it will.From the entry chapter of accidents
  • Altogether it took hundreds of person-years to build the bridge and dam, and such a payroll is not cheap.From the entry person-year
  • This proved difficult, so the IWC simply gave up and imposed a moratorium on whaling altogether.2025 September 11, Kate Marvel, “‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster”, in The Guardian. From the entry flounce
  • Altogether about a third of us are thought to have early stages of NAFLD.2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 176. From the entry NAFLD
  • But the Oscars passed on him and the entire film, which was shut out altogether.2019 January 23, Mark Daniell, “Snubs & surprises: Roma and The Favourite lead Oscar race, while others fail to leave the starting gate”…. From the entry Chalamaniac
  • These members would accept a law to end the Council altogether.2016 January 21, “Legislative Council”, in Parliament of New Zealand. From the entry suicide squad
  • Take in the mizzen altogether, and put up the storm jib!2015, Ralph Demers, Sand Dollars, page xiii. From the entry drogue
  • In the extreme, expansivists assert that we should stop talking of “discovering truth” altogether.2015, Timothy P. Jackson, Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy, page 126. From the entry expansivist
  • An alternative style forsakes italics altogether and assigns a dialogue tag: This is going nowhere, he thought.2011, Deborah Halverson, Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons. From the entry dialogue tag
  • 'Lucy Leave', also known as 'Lucy Lea in Blue Tights', is a stranger beast altogether.2010, Rob Chapman, A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett, page 65. From the entry beast
  • While Sukiya switched to Australian beef, Yoshinoya stopped serving gyudon altogether.2010, Kakuyu Obara, Japan’s Beef Market, page 8. From the entry butadon
  • He suspects it was an altogether different virus the second time round (but that's also unproveable).2009 July 25, Lynda Hurst, “How scared should we be?”, in Toronto Star. From the entry unproveable
  • The Byrds were altogether rather less successful, saleswise, in the UK.2003, Michael Brocken, The British folk revival, 1944-2002. From the entry saleswise
  • Probably the most straightforward solution would be to put the www-rl servers into another domain altogether.2002, Matt Curtin, Developing Trust: Online Privacy and Security, Berkeley, Calif.: Apress, →ISBN, page 153. From the entry klugey
  • Altogether, Microsoft claims a 99% feature parity between 32-bit and 64-bit editions.2000 April 26, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Delta Guide, Pearson Education, unpaged. From the entry parity
  • More legitimate and altogether more 'acribic' would have been benzyl 3-isobutyryloxy-1-isopropyl-2 2-dimethylpropyl phthalate.1998 E. W. Godly, "The need for good nomenclature" in Chemical Nomenclature, edited by K. J. Thurlow (Springer) p.24. From the entry acribic
  • When penetrance is suppressed altogether, the term ‘epistasis’ (and ‘hypostasis’ of the suppressed gene) is used.1997, Vogul & Motulsky, Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches, page 141. From the entry hypostasis
  • To protect himself from flooding, he becomes more and more defensive or simply stonewalls altogether.1996, Daniel Goleman, “Intimate Enemies”, in Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, paperback edition, London: Bloomsbury…. From the entry stonewall
  • Several of the reasons why I dislike MicroSoft altogether are stated below.1995 April 24, Konstantin Boyandin, “Win95 and games: good news...”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (Usenet), retrieved 22 May 2022. From the entry compromiseless
  • It was altogether pleasant, but I never forgot that it was a gilded cage.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 650. From the entry gilded cage
  • It is a questioning of van Vogt's contention that the "right man" is altogether a bad phenomenon.1983, K. Gunnar Bergström, An Odyssey to Freedom: four themes in Colin Wilson's Novels, page 97. From the entry right man
  • In the intense religious practices of yoginis or nuns, the menstrual period can stop altogether.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London…. From the entry yogini
  • This reference work, sociologically and Americanistically oriented, does not altogether neglect women.1981, Jacob Rader Marcus, The American Jewish woman, 1654-1980, page 193. From the entry Americanistically
  • “Our Santa husbands number 12 altogether, with four on duty all the time.”1977 November 28, Laurie Johnston, “The Season's First Snowfall Caps a Sunday of Shopping”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry Mrs. Santa
  • But it was a different matter altogether when the blasting of the tunnel was commenced.1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 754. From the entry blasting
  • Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual.1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. III. From the entry war
  • "I gathered that you might not be altogether sorry to see me.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London. From the entry humour
  • She seemed a placid creature altogether - eminently respectable - perhaps not over intelligent.1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 12, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 158. From the entry over

Meaning of altogether

  1. adverb Completely, wholly, or without exception.
  2. adverb On the whole; with everything considered.
  3. adverb With everything included.

Full definition of altogether

Questions about altogether in a sentence

How do you use altogether in a sentence?
Altogether is used as an adverb and noun. For example: “Police did not seem altogether satisfied with my alibi.”
What is a short sentence with altogether?
“Altogether, I'm sorry it happened.”
What does altogether mean?
Altogether means completely, wholly, or without exception.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: altogether (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.

Last updated:

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