Word.ws English Dictionary

whole

UK/həʊl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/hɔl/

whole adjective: entire, undivided.

Adjective

whole (comparative wholer or more whole, superlative wholest or most whole)

  1. Entire, undivided.
    • I ate a whole fish.
    • During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant[…]1661, John Fell, The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond
    1. Used as an intensifier.
      • I brought a whole lot of balloons for the party. She ate a whole bunch of french fries.
      • There, a huge blue heron stands sentry like a statue, eye on the surface, waiting for his next meal to wriggle by. A lone grassy hill overlooks it all, well above the flood line, big enough to pitch a whole mess of tents [on].2016, Rae Carson, Like a River Glorious, HarperCollins, →ISBN
  2. Sound, uninjured, healthy.
    • He is of whole mind, but the same cannot be said about his physical state.
    • Here, with one balm for many fevers found, / Whole of an ancient evil, I sleep sound.1939, Alfred Edward Housman, Additional Poems, X, lines 5-6
    Synonyms:
    hale, well, all oak and iron bound, buxom, fit, freck, hail, hale and hearty, healthy, in the pink of health
  3. From which none of its constituents has been removed.
    • whole wheat; whole milk
  4. As yet unworked.

Adverb

whole (comparative more whole, superlative most whole)

  1. (colloquial) In entirety; entirely; wholly.
    • I ate a fish whole!
    • That’s a whole other story.

Noun

whole (plural wholes)

  1. Something complete, without any parts missing.
    • This variety of fascinating details didn't fall together into an enjoyable, coherent whole.
  2. An entirety.
    • It is not clear how she imagined the Bolsheviks could keep themselves in power in 1918 while allowing free elections, since the proletariat was only a minority and it could not by any means be supposed that the whole of it would vote for them.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...

whole meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

whole in Hindi

entire
सारा sārā

whole in Tamil

முழு

whole in Marathi

whole, entire, all, every
सर्व sarva
whole, entire
अख्खे akhkhe, अवघे avghe
whole, entire, complete
पूर्ण pūrṇa

whole in Urdu

entire
سارا sārā
More languagesFewer languages
whole in Bengali
সারা sara, ভর bhor, পূর্ণ purno
whole in Telugu
మొత్తం mottaṁ
whole in Malayalam
മൊത്തം mottaṁ, ഒന്നിച്ച് onniccŭ, മുഴുവൻ muḻuvaṉ
whole in Kannada
ಎಲ್ಲವೂ, ಸಮಗ್ರ, ಅನೇಕ ಭಾಗಗಳು ಒಟ್ಟುಗೂಡಿದ್ದು, ಇಡಿ
whole in Punjabi
ਸਾਰਾ sārā, ਕੁੱਲ kull, ਸਭ sabh
whole in Gujarati
અક્ષત akṣat, સઘળું saghaḷũ, અખંડ akhaṇḍ, સળંગ saḷaṅg
whole in Odia
ବିଲ୍କୁଲ୍ bilkul, ସମସ୍ତ samasta, ମାତ୍ର mātra, ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ purṇṇa
whole in Sanskrit
सर्व sárva, विश्व viśva
whole in Sinhala
මුළු muḷu
whole in Assamese
গোটেই gütei, আটাই atai
whole in Arabic
كَامِل kāmil, كُلّ kull
whole in Malay
seluruh
whole in Indonesian
seluruh, antero, utuh
whole in Persian
تمام tamâm, سراسر sarâsar
whole in Vietnamese
toàn thể, toàn bộ

Examples of whole in a sentence

  • “[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
  • The early, intense onset of the monsoon on June 14th swelled rivers, washing away roads, bridges, hotels and even whole villages.2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:
  • I'm thinking, thanks a whole fuck of a lot, Robert.2011, Keith Maillard, Looking Good: Difficulty at the Beginning, Brindle and Glass, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with whole

Synonyms of whole

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of whole

Forms of whole

Adjective
comparativewholer
comparativemore whole
superlativewholest
superlativemost whole
alternative form (obsolete)hole
Adverb
comparativemore whole
superlativemost whole
Noun
pluralwholes

Origin of whole

From Middle English whol, 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-, attested since ca. 1400, represents an excrescent /w/, which developed in words with initial /(h)ɔː/, /(h)oː/ in southwestern dialects of Middle English. While this pronunciation did not establish itself in the standard language (except in one), the spelling survived in whole and whore, in the former case likely reinforced by a desire to disambiguate from hole. 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. False cognate of Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos).

Words formed from whole

Phrases with whole

69 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with whole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about whole

What does whole mean?
Whole means entire, undivided.
What is whole in Hindi?
Whole in Hindi is सारा (sārā). See Whole meaning in Hindi.
How do you use whole in a sentence?
“[…] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness.
What part of speech is whole?
Whole can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
How do you pronounce whole?
Whole is pronounced /həʊl/ (UK).

Words near whole in the dictionary

  1. WHOI
  2. whois
  3. whoised
  4. whoises
  5. whoising
  6. whole
  7. whole bag of tricks
  8. whole ball of wax
  9. whole blood
  10. whole boiling
  11. whole box of tricks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whole (page history and authors); whole (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अख्खे (Marathi) (page history and authors); পূর্ণ (Bengali) (page history and authors); ഒന്നിച്ച് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); whole (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਕੁੱਲ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); અક્ષત (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ (Odia) (page history and authors); මුළු (Sinhala) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-whole.ogg.

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