Word.ws English Dictionary

wholesome

Syllables: whole·some/ˈhəʊl.səm/US/ˈhoʊl.səm/

wholesome adjective: promoting good physical health and well-being.

Adjective

wholesome (comparative more wholesome or wholesomer, superlative most wholesome or wholesomest)

  1. Promoting good physical health and well-being.
    • I prethee go, and get me ſome repaſt,
      I care not what, ſo it be holſome foode.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Everything we do is so wholesome.1953, Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton, Roman Holiday, spoken by Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn)
  2. Promoting moral and mental well-being.
    • Though hard, my friends, yet wholesome are the truths, taught in affliction's school, whence the pure soul rises refined, and soars above the world.1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music)
  3. Favorable to morals, religion or prosperity; sensible; conducive to good; salutary; promoting virtue or being virtuous.
    • A wholeſome tongue is a tree of life: but peruerſneſſe therein is a breach in the ſpirit.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 15:4, column 1
  4. Marked by wholeness; sound and healthy.
  5. Decent; innocuous; sweet.
    • Sometimes white Lyllies did their Leaves afford,
      With wholſom Polly-flow'rs, to mend his homely Board: […]1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 128...
    • The more solicitous of the two was Nurse Cramer, a shapely, pretty, sexless girl with a wholesome unattractive face.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171

wholesome meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

wholesome in Tamil

உடலுக்குகந்த, நலந்தருகின்ற, ஆரோக்கியமான

wholesome in Urdu

بھر پور, سلیم, صحت مند

wholesome in Malayalam

ആരോഗ്യാവഹമായ, സുഖപ്രദമായ

wholesome in Kannada

wholesome, salubrious
ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ārōgya
More languagesFewer languages
wholesome in Sanskrit
हित hitá, धन्य dhánya

Examples of wholesome in a sentence

  • Around the same time, “wholesome” memes of cute doggos and puppers rejuvenated social media feeds that seemed daily filled with fresh horrors.2019, Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, Riverhead Books, →ISBN:
  • The comment section on a recent post making fun of a “cute” and “wholesome” Doomer Girl meme is mixed.2020 February 3, Kaitlyn Tiffany, “The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale”, in The Atlantic:

All 39 example sentences with wholesome

Synonyms of wholesome

Antonyms

Forms of wholesome

comparativemore wholesome
comparativewholesomer
superlativemost wholesome
superlativewholesomest
alternative formholesom
alternative formholesome
alternative formwholsom
alternative formwholsome

Origin of wholesome

From earlier holesome, from Middle English holsom, holsum, helsum, halsum, from Old English *hālsum, *hǣlsum, from Proto-West Germanic *hailasam, from Proto-Germanic *hailasamaz, equivalent to whole + -some or hale (“healthy”) + -some. Cognate with Saterland Frisian heelsoam, Dutch heilzaam, German Low German heelsaam, German heilsam, Icelandic heilsamur, Norwegian Nynorsk helsesam, Swedish hälsosam (“wholesome”).

Words formed from wholesome

Words that rhyme with wholesome

Questions about wholesome

What does wholesome mean?
Wholesome means promoting good physical health and well-being.
What is wholesome in Tamil?
Wholesome in Tamil is உடலுக்குகந்த, நலந்தருகின்ற, ஆரோக்கியமான. See Wholesome meaning in Tamil.
How do you use wholesome in a sentence?
Around the same time, “wholesome” memes of cute doggos and puppers rejuvenated social media feeds that seemed daily filled with fresh horrors.
What part of speech is wholesome?
Wholesome is an adjective.
How do you pronounce wholesome?
Wholesome is pronounced /ˈhoʊl.səm/ (US).

Words near wholesome in the dictionary

  1. wholesalers
  2. wholesales
  3. wholesaling
  4. wholesalings
  5. wholescale
  6. wholesome
  7. wholesomely
  8. wholesomeness
  9. wholesomenesses
  10. wholesomer
  11. wholesomest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wholesome (page history and authors); wholesome (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wholesome (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wholesome (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಆರೋಗ್ಯ (Kannada) (page history and authors); धन्य (Sanskrit) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-wholesome.wav.

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