▪ I. whole, a., n., adv., (int.)
(həʊl)
Forms: α. 1 hal, 3– hale, etc.; see hale a. β. 3–5 hol, (3 hoal, 4 ol, hoel), 4–6 holl, hool(e, 4–8 hole, 5–6 holle, hooll(e, hoyll(e, wholle, (5 oull), 6 (w)hoale, (houll, woll(e), Sc. hoill, 6–7 whol, wholl, (7 Sc. quholl), 6– whole.
[OE. hál (also ᵹehál yhole) = (O)Fris., OS. hêl (MDu. heel, usually gheheel, Du. heel, geheel, MLG., LG. heel), OHG. (MHG., G.) heil (MHG. geheil), ON. heill hail a. (Sw. hel, Da. heel):—OTeut. *(ga)χailaz:—Indo-Eur. *qoilos. From the same stem are also OSl. cělъ, cělostъ complete, whole, OPruss. kailūstiska-n acc. health (f. *kailūstas), Gr. κοῖλυ· τὸ καλόν (Hesychius), OS. hêl omen, OHG. (MHG., G.) heil health, (good or bad) fortune, ON. heill neut. omen, fem. good luck, happiness, Goth. hails health (also gahails). The gradation-variant *qeilo- is represented by OIr. cēl omen.
On the spelling whole (the wh first appears in the 15th cent.) see the article wh. Pronunciations with initial (w) exist in modern dialects over an area extending from Somerset to north-east Yorkshire. For the northern form corresp. to midland and southern hōl, whole, see hale a. For derivatives with mutated vowel see hail n.2, heal n., heal v.1
The Germanic adj. has the meanings (not all represented in every dialect) of ‘uninjured, sound, healthy, entire complete’; the sense ‘healthy’ gave rise to its use in several languages in salutations, e.g. Goth. hails = χαῖρε, OS. hêl wes, OE. hál wes þ{uacu}, ON. ver heill, sit heill: see wassail and hail int.]
A. adj. I. In good condition, sound. In senses 1–4 often in collocation with sound (OE. hál ond ᵹesund, ME. hol and sound, also hol and fer, hail and hol).
1. a. Of a person or an animal, the body, limbs, skin: Uninjured, unwounded, unhurt; (contextually) recovered from injury or a wound; † (of a wound) healed. † to lick whole: see lick v. 1 e. arch.
| Beowulf 1974 Þæt ðær on worðiᵹ wiᵹendra hleo..cwom heaðolaces hal to hofe gongan. 971 Blickl. Hom. 177 Hie þa hine on rode ahengan..& he..hine halne & ᵹesundne ðy ðriddan dæᵹe æteowde. a 1000 Daniel 271 Hyssas hale hwurfon in þam hatan ofne. c 1175 Lamb. Hom. 29 Ane wunde on his licome þet ne mei beon longe hwile hal. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 2812 In hise bosum he dede his hond, Quit and al unfer he it fond; And sone he dede it eft agen, Al hol and fer he wiste it sen. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. 33/131 His heued ȝut and is finguer al-so boþe huy beoth hole and sounde. a 1310 in Wright Lyric P. xxxvii. 102 Nou thou art sekest, ant nou holest. 1357 Lay Folks Catech. (L.) 449 Betyn with scorgys, þat no skyn held hool. c 1386 Chaucer Friar's T. 72 In this world nys dogge..That kan an hurt deer from an hool knowe. 1388 Wyclif Job v. 18 He smytith, and hise hondis schulen make hool. a 1400 Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. xxix. v. 67 Whon he a-wok, he groped his leg; He feled hit hol and sount. 1452 Paston Lett. I. 239 Wheche wownde was never hol to the daye of her deth. 1523 Ld. Berners Froiss. I. ccii. 98/2 Sir Eustace Dambreticourt..was as thanne hole of his hurtes. 1530 Palsgr. 836/2 Hole and safe, sayn et sauf. c 1550–1712 [see lick v. 1 e]. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 131 When the wounde is whoale, what neede any playster or further surgery? 1581 W. Stafford Exam. Compl. iii. (1876) 91 Wee shoulde lycke our selues hoale againe in short space. 1590 Spenser F.Q. iii. v. 43 As his wound did gather, and grow hole. 1593 Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iv. vii. 11 He was thrust in the mouth with a Speare, and 'tis not whole yet. 1599 Porter Angry Wom. Abingt. (Percy Soc.) 104 A man is not so soon whole as hurt. 1844 G. R. Gleig Lt. Dragoon xvi, One whole man..is enough to take care of a wounded one. 1847 Tennyson Princess vi. 194 She..Felt it [sc. the babe] sound and whole from head to foot. 1855 Browning An Epistle 86 The evil thing out-breaking all at once Left the man whole and sound of body indeed. |
b. Phr.
as whole as a fish (
a trout).
| [Cf. a 1400–50 Wars Alex. 4282 Bot ay as fresche & as fere as fisch quen he plays.] |
| a 1425 Cursor M. 11884 (Trin.) A noble baþ we shul þe make; Bi þat þou com þerof oute Þou shal be hool as any troute [Cott. hale sum ani trute]. c 1450 Mirk's Festial 265 Anon þe lepur fel from hym and he was hole as a fysche. 1518 [see trout n.1 1]. 1591 Shakes. Two Gent. ii. v. 20 They are both as whole as a fish. 1700 T. Brown tr. Fresny's Amusem. 120 In four and twenty Hours he made 'em as whole as Fishes. |
c. In allusive phrases
whole skin (
whole limbs),
esp. in a whole skin = uninjured.
| 1547 Boorde Introd. Knowl. xviii. (1870) 169 The people..loue no warre, but louyth to rest in a hole skin. 1555, etc. [see skin n. 6 c]. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. iii. i. 79 Let them keepe their limbs whole, and hack our English. Ibid. 111 Your hearts are mighty, your skinnes are whole. 1648 Bp. Hall Breathings Devout Soul xxvii. 41 A third with Lazarus wants bread, and a whole skin. 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1768) V. 260 Honest Hickman may now sleep in a whole skin. 1841 Thackeray Gt. Hoggarty Diam. xiii, If he wants to keep his place and his whole skin. 1877 Spurgeon Metrop. Tab. Pulpit XXIII. 563 Others think the Gospel is true: Erasmus feels sure that it is, but Erasmus wants to die in a whole skin. |
2. a. Of inanimate objects: Free from damage or defect; uninjured, unimpaired, unbroken, untainted, intact. (
Cf. 6, 8.)
| [c 1000: see yhole.] c 1250 Compassio Mariæ 37 So gleam glidis þurt þe glas, Of þi bodi born he was, And þurt þe hoale þurch he gload. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 2776 Ðo saȝ moyses, at munt synay,..Fier brennen on ðe grene leaf, And ðoȝ grene and hol bi-leaf. a 1300 Floriz & Bl. 364 Ber wiþ þe forti pund And þine cupe hol and sund. 13.. K. Alis. 7389 (Laud MS.), Her armes riche of mounde Weren ȝitt hole & sounde. c 1305 St. Swithin 66 in E.E.P. (1862) 45 Seint swythin..blessede þe eiren to-broke and hi bicome hole anon And sound as hi euere were. 1340 Ayenb. 205 A roted eppel amang þe holen makeþ rotie þe yzounde. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xiv. 1, I Haue but one hool hatere. c 1420 Chron. Vilod. 3368 When he was take vp of þe vrthe, he was as wholle And as freysshe as he was ony tyme þat day byfore. c 1450 Merlin 117 Yet hadde he his spere hoill. 1476 Stonor Papers (Camden) II. 4, I haue ressayved your wollys as ffayer and as hole as any mannys. 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iii. ii. 37 Pistoll..hath a killing Tongue, and a quiet Sword; by the meanes whereof, a breakes Words, and keepes whole Weapons. 1611 tr. Serlio's Archit. iii. 27 b, Traians Columne is the wholest. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. xix. 121 His corslet wholler then his clothes. 1674 R. Godfrey Inj. & Ab. Physic 205 This is worse than what Tinkers do, to make a Hole in a whole Vessel. a 1700 Evelyn Diary Sept. 1646, Clad..in blew cloth, very whole and warme. 1718 Rae Hist. Reb. 287 Bringing..the whole Boats they found in their Way. 1829 Chapters Phys. Sci. 185 When the pipe is quite whole and sound. 1839 H. T. De la Beche Rep. Geol. Cornwall, etc. xiii. 405 Whole ground, as the tin-streamers term the stanniferous gravel and super⁓incumbent beds which have not been previously disturbed by the old men. 1858 Hawthorne Fr. & It. Note-bks. (1871) II. 9 She is just as whole as when she left the hands of the sculptor. |
† b. Of immaterial things: Intact, unimpaired.
| c 1450 Brut ii. 327 It was ordeyned in þe parlement þat all Cathedrall cherches shold ioy and haue her eleccions hool; & þat þe King..sholde not write aȝens hem þat were ychosen. a 1500 in Arnolde's Chron. (1811) 35 That the citezens..haue alle her fraunchyses and free custumes holl and vnblemyshed as they before this tyme hadden hem. a 1533 Ld. Berners Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. Prol. (1535) A j, There is nothynge so entier, but it diminisheth, nor nothyng so hole, but that is wery. |
3. a. In good health; free from disease; healthy, ‘well’; (contextually) restored to health, recovered from disease, ‘well again’.
arch.| c 888 ælfred Boeth. x, Ðu eart nu ᵹit swiðe ᵹesæliᵹ, nu ðu ᵹit liofost & eart hal. a 1200 Moral Ode 114 in O.E. Hom. I. 167 Wa se seið þet he bo hal, him solf wat best his smirte. c 1290 St. Barnabas 61 in S. Eng. Leg. 28 He bi-cam anon hol and sound. c 1305 Pilate 142 in E.E.P. (1862) 115 Anon þo he þe ymage iseȝ he was ol anon. ? a 1366 Chaucer Rom. Rose 1097 A stoon..so..vertuous, That hole a man it koude make Of palasie, and tothe ake. c 1450 Merlin 52 To axe..yef this seke shall euer be hoill of this sekenesse. 1526 Tindale Mark v. 34 Thy fayth hath saved the [1611 made thee whole], goo in peace, and be whole off thy plage. 1530–1 Act 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12 §3 Yf any person..beyng hole & myghtie in body & able to laboure..be taken in beggyng. a 1533 Ld. Berners Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. xxix. (1535) 49, I repute it a very perillous thinge for a hole man to reste and be idell. 1584 R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. xvi. ix. (1886) 485 Endued with a cleare, whole, subtill and sweet bloud. 1629 Orkney Witch Trial in County Folk Lore iii. (1903) 103 Quha being quholl then deit within thrie dayes be your witchcraft. 1722 De Foe Plague (1754) 162 We are all whole and sound People here, and we would not have you bring the Plague among us. 1814 Cary Dante, Parad. iv. 49 Him who made Tobias whole. |
| absol. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. ix. 12 Nys halum læces nan þearf ac seocum. c 1330 Assump. Virg. (B. M. MS.) 69 Seke and hole sche dide gode. a 1425 Cursor M. 20119 (Trin.) To hoole & seke dud she bote. 1548–9 (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Ordering of Priests, As well to the sicke as to the whole. 1676 Glanvill Ess. Philos. & Relig. vii. 1 We had all things, both for our Whole and Sick, that belonged to Charity and Mercy. |
† b. OE. and early
ME. hāl in salutations.
| c 1000 ælfric Hom. II. 252 Sy ðu hal, leof, Iudeiscre leode cyning. c 1205 Lay. 14936 Hal wrð þu lauerd king. [1583 T. Stocker Civ. Warres Lowe C. iv. 12 b, Thei cried with a lustie courage, All whole noble mates all whole.] |
c. fig. in biblical translation of reminiscence of biblical uses.
| c 1000 Ags. Ps. (Th.) lxi[i]. 8 Doð eowre heortan..hale and clæne. 1382 Wyclif Jer. xxxviii. 2 His lif shal ben hoel and lyuynge. 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §149 Hole in body, holer in soule, and rycher in goodes. 1535 Coverdale 2 Sam. i. 9 My life is yet whole within me. 1738 Wesley Ps. vi. ii, O Lord,..save my Soul, And for thy Mercy sake make whole. 1833 Tennyson Miller's Dau. ii, A soul..So healthy, sound, and clear and whole. 1866 Whittier Our Master xiv, We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again. |
† 4. In reference to the mental faculties: Sound, sane.
Obs. In the language of wills
whole = L.
sanus, as in
sanus mente,
sanæ mentis.
| c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Mark v. 15 Hales modes. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 38 Þouȝ eche man..myȝtte lyue hool & sond in bodi & wittis. 1418 E.E. Wills (1882) 30, I, Iohn Chelmyswyk squier of Shropshire, hole of mynde & in my gode memorie beyng. 1483–4 Act 1 Rich. III, c. 1 §1 Eny persone..beyng of..hoole mynde at large and not in duresse. 1506 Linc. Wills (1914) I. 32 Of a holle mynde and hoill memory. 1581 G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. i. (1586) 4 If I flatter not my selfe, I haue a whole minde within my crasie bodie. |
† 5. As a rendering (direct or indirect) of L.
sānus in the sense: Sound, wholesome.
Obs.| a 1225 Ancr. R. 370 Ne nomen heo neuer ȝeme hwat was hol, hwat was unhol te eten ne to drincken. 1340 Ayenb. 251 Ase moche ase þe welle yuelþ lesse of þe erþe, zuo moche hi is þo holer and þe betere of to drinke. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 228 Ȝif ony man..accordiþ not to þe hoole wordis [1 Tim. vi. 3 sanis sermonibus] of oure lord ihū crist. Ibid. 408 He lediþ his sheep wel in hool pasture þat wole not rote. ? a 1400 Little Red Bk. Bristol (1900) I. 1 Ȝhe schal..ȝhif trewe and hole counsell..to the Mair. c 1440 Pallad. on Husb. i. 23 First biholde aboute, and se thyn aier; If hit be cleer and hool, stond out of fere. 1502 Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W. 1506) iv. iv. P iv b, After the moost hole opynyon [orig. selon la plus saine opinion]. |
II. Complete, total (and allied senses).
6. a. Having all its parts or elements; having no part or element wanting; having its complete or entire extent or magnitude; full, perfect.
Chiefly of abstract things; when used of material objects, this sense is coincident with 2.
| [c 890 Wærferth tr. Gregory's Dial. ii. x. (1890) 124/14 Þære kicenan ᵹetimbrung stod ᵹehal & ᵹesund. c 1000 ælfric Gen. Pref., Se tæᵹl sceolde beon ᵹehal..on ðam nytene æt ðære offrungæ. c 1315 Shoreham i. 720 Þer he hys, he hys al yhol.] 13.. Bonaventura's Medit. 182 A derwurþ ȝyfte he wulde with þe lete, Hym self al hole vn to þy mete. c 1386 Chaucer Sec. Nun's T. 111 The cleernesse hool of sapience. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 6 With hol trust and with hol believe. c 1400 Mandeville xxvi. [xxii.] (1919) I. 158 The nombre schall eueremore ben hool. 1457 Harding Chron. in Engl. Hist. Rev. (1912) Oct. 748 His vertuse dygne so hole were and plenere. 1560 J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 227 b, He permitteth..the whole supper of the Lorde [i.e. in both kinds]. 1581 G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. iii. (1586) 143 b, Seeing these women will not be the whole mothers of their children, they ought at least to be carefull to chuse good Nursses. 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. iv. xiii. 126 b, A fair Turkie horse decked with the whole skinne of a great Lion. 1654 Gataker Disc. Apol. 46 Either place required a whole man. 1701 Stanhope Pious Breathings iv. viii. (1704) 257 Thou art the Bread of Life, every day eaten, yet still whole and never consumed. 1743 Bulkeley & Cummins Voy. S. Seas 103 At whole Allowance. 1812 L. Hunt in Examiner 9 Nov. 716/1 The pit was but moderately filled at whole price. 1818 Art Bk.-binding 4 Quarto whole-sheets, consist of eight printed pages. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xlix, He..from half thief became whole robber. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. lxxi. 8 That so my pleasure may be whole. 1891 Pall Mall Gaz. 27 Nov. 5/2 There were four occasions on which the wind reached force 10, or what is known among sailors as a ‘whole’ gale. |
† b. Of will, intention, affection: Full, complete, perfect.
Obs.| c 1369 Chaucer Bk. Duchesse 1224 With hool herte I gan hir beseche. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2339 He that..Yaff hoole his herte in will and thought. c 1400 Destr. Troy 2195 With hardynes of hond, & with hole might. c 1430 Hymns Virgin (1867) 103 Y bileeue in hool mynde, Þe holi goost schalle knytte aȝen Þe soule to þe fleische. 1535 Coverdale 2 Chron. xv. 15 They soughte him with a whole wyll. ― Ps. cxviii[i]. 34, I shal kepe thy lawe, yee I shal kepe it with my whole herte. |
c. Containing all its proper or essential constituents; of milk, unskimmed. See also
whole meal in D. 1.
| 1794 Wedge Agric. Chester 37 The common practice of churning the ‘whole milk,’ instead of setting up the milk for the cream to rise, and churning it alone. 1894 Field 9 June 846/2 It is less trouble to churn whole milk than to churn cream. |
d. whole or part:
attrib. use of
in whole or in part (see B. 3 c).
rare.
| 1880 Swinburne Stud. Shaks. 292 The evidence for Shakespeare's whole or part authorship. |
7. a. The full or total amount of; all, all of (as distinguished from
part of or
some of). The prevailing current sense; only in attributive use, and now always preceding the
n. Formerly pleonastically with
all,
entire, etc.: also following its
n. (
a)
a,
the,
his, etc.
whole with
sing. n.| [a 900 O.E. Martyrol. 10 Jan. 16 Ond þa sona brohte him se hræfn ᵹehalne hlaf. c 1325 Chron. Eng. 413 in Ritson Metr. Rom. II. 287 Al Englond yhol. 1340 Ayenb. 126 Yef we yzeȝe þet we miȝte more ine one daye profiti þanne hi ne moȝe ine one yere y-hol.] 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. ii. 6 Seo wher he stondeþ!..and al his hole Meyne! c 1369 Chaucer Bk. Duchesse 554 To make yow hool I wol do alle my power hool. 1390 Gower Conf. II. 121 Ye knowen al min hole herte. c 1400 Destr. Troy 6852 Menelay the mighty, & the mayn Telamon, So sturnly withstod with þaire strenkyth holl. Ibid. 13492 To hit into havyn with his hoole flete. c 1400 Mandeville xvi. (1919) I. 86 Þei fasten an hool moneth. c 1449 Pecock Repr. Prol. 2 The clergie of Goddis hool chirche in erthe. c 1449 The hool al werk [see all A. 10]. 1491–2 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1904) 181 The clarkes wages for an oull yere iiij s iiij d. 1523 Wolsey in St. Papers Hen. VIII, VI. 205 Either for the hoole wynter or at the lest for a season. a 1532 Rem. Love xliii. Chaucer's Wks. 368 Eche letter an hole worde dothe represent. 1553 (title) The true and lyuely historyke pvrtreatvres of the woll bible. 1556 Olde Antichrist 8 Al hole Germany..euery where cruelly vexed. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. liv. 114 To be the peace of the whole world. 1610 Shakes. Temp. ii. i. 315 The roare Of a whole heard of Lyons. 1613 ― Hen. VIII, i. i. 12 All the whole time I was my Chambers Prisoner. 1616 R. C. Times' Whistle v. (1871) 66 The lease..For a whole hundred yeares is good in lawe. 1654 H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 186 That Parliament from which the hole Kingdome expected a Reformation. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 353 An Oath, That shook Heav'ns whol circumference. 1678 Moxon Mech. Exerc. iv. 73 Should workmen hold the Blade of the Paring Chissel in their whole hand. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 78 ¶8 Hippocrates, who visited me throughout my whole Illness. 1756 W. Toldervy Hist. Two Orphans I. 169 In all the whole enlightened system. 1784 Cowper Tiroc. 225 The stout tall captain,..upon whom they fix Their whole attention. 1845 M. Pattison Ess. (1889) I. 2 The whole..manner of looking at things alters with every age. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. vii. (1858) II. 462 The whole Anglican priesthood, the whole Cavalier gentry, were against him. c 1850 Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.) 632 He related his whole adventure from beginning to end. |
(
b) with numeral, as
the whole three (
† the three whole),
two whole (
† whole two).
| a 1375 Joseph Arim. 340 Ȝif vchon haue a godhede I graunte, bi him-selue, I seie þat on is also good as þe þreo hole. c 1380 Sir Ferumb. 4631 Charlys þe Citee þo gan asayle, Two dawes hole. 1577 Hanmer Anc. Eccl. Hist. 80 Lying whole six dayes vnburied. 1597 Beard Theatre God's Judgem. x. (1612) 41 A..pestilence, which lasted whole tenne yeares. 1611 Bible Acts xxviii. 30 Paul dwelt two whole yeeres in his owne hired house. 1641 J. Jackson True Evang. T. i. 32 The fourth Persecution..wherein the Church had no breathing for whole twenty yeares together. 1796 E. Hamilton Lett. Hindoo Rajah (1811) II. 311 He..staid whole ten days. 1827 O. W. Roberts Voy. Centr. Amer. 228, I brought the whole three to the ground at one shot. |
(
c) with
pl. n. (
the,
my, etc.
whole{ddd}): now chiefly
Sc. (replaced ordinarily by
the whole of the{ddd}or
all the{ddd}); formerly also without article (now only as in c).
| 1516 in Leadam Sel. Cases Star Chamb. (Selden Soc.) II. 115 Theseid decrees..shalbe..obserued..by the hole Burgesses and inhabitauntes of the same Towne. 1521 Ld. T. Dacre in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. ii. I. 279 Not doubting..but ye shalbe..recompensed of your hool dueties with th'arreragies. 1596 Edw. III, i. i, All the whole dominions of the realm. 1650 Earl of Monmouth tr. Senault's Man bec. Guilty 89 There be whole intire Nations which approve of Incest. 1680 in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. (1911) XLV. 233 All the whole ministers are content to be ordered by the enemies of Christ. 1764 Goldsm. Hist. Eng. in Lett. (1772) II. 203 The French..having reduced almost the whole Netherlands to their obedience. 1798 Monthly Mag. Dec. 436 My whole friends are against me; all my friends. 1808 Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 112 We shall get our whole sea-ports put into that state of defence. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. 2 His whole other tissues are included. 1895 Times (weekly ed.) 26 Apr. 324/1 A third of the whole inhabitants of India. |
† (
d) with
sing. n., without article: All, the whole of.
Obs.| 1535 Coverdale 1 Esdras viii. 7 He taught whole Israel all righteousnes & iudgment. 1551 T. Wilson Logic (1552) 165 b, As though whole religion stoude in these pointes onely. 1591 Savile Tacitus, Agricola 242 The figure..of whole Britannie, by Liuy.., is likened to a long dish or two edged axe. 1657 W. Rand tr. Gassendi's Life Peiresc. Ep. Ded., Not only whole Europe, but Asia also..had their Eyes..fixed upon this Province. 1826 Southey Vind. Eccl. Angl. x. 455 note, All creatures stand astonished, whole Nature is amazed. |
† b. In
phr. whole and some (
cf. ‘all and some’,
all A. 12 a), rarely
full and whole, following a plural or collective noun or a plural pronoun: The whole number or amount, ‘the whole lot’, all; in all, altogether.
Obs.| c 1374 Chaucer Anel. & Arc. 26 For which the people blisfull hole and somme..crydon [etc.]. ? a 1400 Arthur 424 And all þeire power hooll & soom. c 1430 Hymns Virgin (1867) 49 Alle to-gidere, boþe hool & some, To teer him from þe top to þe toon. 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 243 b, He made all the people full and whole to gase on hym. Ibid. 281 b. a 1566 R. Edwards Damon & Pithias (1571) F j b, Though I be not learned, yet cha mother witte enough whole & some. |
c. With rhetorical emphasis, where there is implication of an unusually large quantity or number.
| 1628 Earle Microcosm., Herald (Arb.) 71 He tels you of whole fields of gold and siluer, Or and Argent. 1664 Butler Hud. ii. iii. 147 Sitting..Whole days and nights. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xii. III. 163 Whole towns..were left in ruins. 1911 G. E. Smith Anc. Egyptians i. 2 Whole shelves of libraries are filled with the records of this quest. |
8. a. Not divided into parts or particles; not ground, broken up, or cut in pieces; undivided, entire. (Of various things, material and immaterial.)
Cf. 2.
| c 888 ælfred Boeth. xxxiv. §12 Hwæþer þu þonne ongite þæte ælc þara wuhta þe him beon þencð, þæt hit þencð ætgædere bion, ᵹehal, untodæled? forðæm ᵹif hit todæled bið, þonne ne bið hit no hal. [c 1000 [see yhole]. a 1240 Sawles Warde in O.E. Hom. I. 251 Iteilede draken grisliche ase deoflen þe forswolheð ham ihal.] 1375 Barbour Bruce vi. 78 He saw the brayis hye standand, The vattir holl throu slike rynand. 1382 Wyclif Prov. i. 12 Swolewe wee hym..hol as the descendende in to the lake. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 9 Take þe pertryche, an stuffe hym wyth hole pepir. 1484 Caxton Fables of æsop v. ix, Pulle the skynne fro the body..& kepe it hoole. 1513 Bk. Keruynge in Babees Bk. 279 The goos & swanne may be cut as ye do other fowles y{supt} haue hole fete. 1530 Palsgr. 833 By retayle, as men sell wares that they sell nat hole [i.e. wholesale: cf. B. 3 b] or by great. a 1533 Ld. Berners Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. let. iii. (1535) 105 b, We ete dyuers thynges by morsels which if we shulde eate hole, wolde choke vs. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lvi. 126 A deede must either not be imputed..or..they which haue it by imputation must haue it such as it is whole. 1617 Moryson Itin. i. 14 The walles being all of whole trees as they come out of the wood. 1648 Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 198 For the paschal Lamb it must be set on all whole. 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. ii. 32 Which will neither way be so strong as the Worm cut out of the whole Iron. 1709 T. Robinson Vind. Mos. Syst. 32 Moses..makes Fish and Fowl Congenial..From their manner of feeding, being both Swollowers hole. a 1756 E. Haywood New Present (1771) 197 One pint of whole oatmeal. 1806 A. Hunter Culina (ed. 3) 215 To a pint of strong gravy, put two small onions sliced, a little whole pepper. 1842 Loudon Suburban Hort. 687 In the manner of gooseberries and apples..baked whole in a dish. 1859 Tennyson Marr. Geraint 318 Here had fall'n a great part of a tower Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff. |
† b. Undivided in allegiance or devotion; loyal, faithful, steadfast. (
Cf. whole-hearted,
-souled, in D. 2 d.)
Obs.| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 594 Þere he fyndez al fayre a freke wyth-inne Þat hert honest & hol. c 1374 Chaucer Troylus iii. 1001, I..shal..Ben to yow trewe and hol with al myn herte. 1451 Paston Lett. I. 208 The Sheriff is noght so hole as he was, for now he wille shewe but a part of his frendeshippe. 1535 Coverdale Ps. lxxvii[i]. 37 Their herte was not whole [1611 right] with him, nether continued they in his couenaunt. 1553 Bradford in Coverdale Godly Lett. (1564) 344 Gods deare chyldren, whose hartes are whole wyth the Lorde. |
† c. Not divided in opinion; united, unanimous.
| 1451 Paston Lett. I. 183 The Kyng, by the hole advyse of all the greet Councell of Ingland,..send hider his said Commission. 1540–1 Elyot Image Gov. iii. 3 b, By the hole consent of the Senate and people. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI 185 To whome they, with a whole voyce, aunswered nay, nay. |
d. Math. Of a number: Denoting a complete and undivided thing, or a set of such things (not a part of a thing); integral, not fractional.
† In first
quot., Composed of three prime factors:
= solid a. 2 b (
obs.).
| c 1430 Art of Nombryng ix. (1922) 46 Of nombres one is lyneal, anoþer superficialle, anoþer quadrat, anoþer cubike or hoole. 1557 Recorde Whetst. A ij, Some are whole nombers... Other are broken nombers, and are commonly called fractions. 1608 R. Norton Stevin's Disme A 3 b, A Whole number is either a vnitie, or a compounded multitude of vnities. 1842 Gwilt Archit. 229 A product..is generated by the multiplication of two or more numbers... All whole numbers cannot result from such a multiplication. |
e. Coal-mining. Applied to a portion of a coal seam which has not yet been worked, or is in the earlier stage of working: see
quots.| 1860 Engl. & For. Mining Gloss. (ed. 2) 67 Whole, where the coal has not been previously worked. 1883 Gresley Gloss. Coal-m., Whole or Whole Mine (N[orth of England]), that portion of a coal seam being worked by driving headings into it only, or the state of the mine before bringing back the pillars, or what is called working the broken, commences... Whole Stalls (S[outh] W[ales]), two or more stalls having their faces in line or on a thread with one another. |
9. Constituting the total amount, without admixture of anything different; full, unmixed, pure. In various connexions: often opposed to
half.
a. whole blood: see
blood n. 9. So
whole brother or
whole sister, a brother or sister of the whole blood,
i.e. a son or daughter of both the same parents (as distinguished from a
half-brother or
half-sister).
| 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xviii. 375 Ac alle þat beth myne hole bretheren in blode & in baptesme. c 1420 Chron. Vilod. 711 Twey sones he had..Edwyge and Edgar, his hole brother. 1444 Rolls of Parlt. V. 104/2 No maner Walssh man of hole blode, ne half blode on the fader side. 1544 tr. Littleton's Tenures 1 Hys next cosyn collaterall of the hole blode. 1697, 1810 [see blood n. 9]. 1826 J. F. Cooper Last of Mohicans viii, As for me, who am of the whole blood of the whites. |
† b. Said of a person who has the whole of some possession, charge, or function, not sharing it with any one else:
= sole a. 5 b.
Obs.| c 1420 Chron. Vilod. 3281 Knoude was made hole kyng of alle Englonde. 1455 Rolls of Parlt. V. 312/2 Hole heire in the taylle to the said Thomas. 1530 Rastell Bk. Purgat. i. xv, One hye hole ordener of al thyngs. 1540 Barnes in Foxe A. & M. (1583) 1199/2 His grace is made a whole kyng, and obeyed in his Realme as a kyng. 1628 in Engl. Hist. Rev. (1918) Jan. 35 My..Nephew Thomas..whom I make my whole and onelie Executor. |
c. Bookbinding. Forming the whole of the cover:
opp. to
half- II. j.
| 1839 J. R. Smith's Catal. Second-hand Bks. Dec. 8/1 Whole calf. 1879 in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 87 The whole-binding..means that the whole of the cover of the book is covered with the same leather. |
d. whole holiday: a day the whole of which is observed as a holiday (
opp. to
half-holiday 2 c).
| 1839 Ld. Houghton Barren Hill iii. Poet. Wks. 1876 II. 109 Whole-holidays of joy. 1895 K. Grahame Golden Age 8 With us it was a whole holiday; the occasion a birthday. |
e. Of a team of horses: All of the same colour, ‘whole-coloured’.
| 1892 Daily News 31 May 6/1 Sir John, who used always to have a whole team, has now got one brown horse as wheeler. |
B. n. 1. a. The full, complete, or total amount; the assemblage of all the parts, elements, or individuals (
of). With
def. art. (rarely with possessive);
the whole of = all.
† In early use
occas. (as in A. 7) qualified by
all.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. i. (Bodl. MS.), A tree..haþ no meuynge of hit silfe, noþer al þe hole noþer parties þereof. c 1440 Jacob's Well 201 Ȝyf þou ȝyue counseyl to takyn..wrongfully oþeres good,..& be þi counseyl þat wrong is don in-dede, þou art bounde to restore þe hole. 1582 N.T. (Rhem.) Matt. xiii. 33 Leauen, which a woman tooke and hid in three measures of meale, vntil the whole was leauened. a 1586 Satir. Poems Reform. xxxv. 9 Quhy sould the hoill, for thair desert, That faine wald haue that fact withstand,..beir the blame? 1593 Shakes. Lucr. 1159 They that loose halfe with greater patience beare it, Then they whose whole is swallowed in confusion. c 1600 ― Sonn. cxxxiv. 14 He paies the whole, and yet am I not free. 1615 E. S. Brit. Buss in Arber Engl. Garner III. 636 The very First Year's herrings only, may bring in to the Adventurer or Owner; all his whole both of Stock and Charges of {pstlg}934 5s. 8d. aforesaid. 1709–29 V. Mandey Syst. Math., Arith. 6 A number that measures the whole, and that which is taken away, will also measure the remainder. 1759 Johnson Rasselas xxviii[i], The good of the whole, says Rasselas, is the same with the good of all its parts. 1823 Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) I. 273 In the whole of my ride, I have not seen much finer fields of wheat. 1840 Thackeray Barber Cox Mar., The whole of the gentlemen of the hunt. 1853 A. Soyer Pantroph. 185 Thicken with flour, and pour the whole on the deer when roasted. 1889 H. W. Picton Story of Chem. 296 We now define a salt as an acid having the whole or part of its hydrogen replaced by a metal. |
b. U.S. the Whole = the Whole House (see
committee 3).
| 1840 Congressional Globe 5 May 364/2 The House then resolved itself into Committee of the Whole. |
c. In a charade,
my whole denotes the complete word of which the syllables, called
my first and
my second, are the parts.
| c 1789 Encycl. Brit. (1797) IV. 341/1 My first is equally friendly to the thief and the lover... My second is light's opposite... My whole is tempting to the touch, grateful to the sight, fatal to the taste. Night-shade. 1836 Penny Cycl. VI. 489/1 My first makes use of my second to eat my whole [French chiendent]. 1844 G. S. Faber Eight Dissert. (1845) II. 262 If in the process, the actual Dissyllable itself, in that species of amusement technically called my whole, should evaporate into thin air. |
2. Something made up of parts in combination or mutual connexion; an assemblage of things united so as to constitute one greater thing; a complex unity or system. Usually with
indef. art.; also in
pl.| 1697 tr. Burgersdicius' Logic i. xiv. 43 A Whole is that which consists in the Union of any things, or Parts. 1725 Watts Logic i. vi. §7 All Parts have a Reference to some Whole. 1732 Pope Ess. Man i. 267 All are but parts of one stupendous whole. 1791 W. Gilpin Forest Scenery II. 62 All together the view is picturesque. It is what the painter properly calls a whole. There is a fore-ground, a middle-ground and distance—all harmoniously united. 1821 Shelley Hellas 776 This Whole Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,..Is but a vision. 1833 Tennyson Pal. Art 58 Full of great rooms and small.., All various, each a perfect whole. 1860 J. Brown Horæ Subs. Ser. ii. (1861) 229 A child begins by seeing bits of everything;..it makes up its wholes out of its own littles. 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man. i. 1 The complex whole which we call Civilization. |
3. Phrases in senses 1 and 2.
a. as a whole (sense 2): as a complete thing (not in separate parts); as a unity; in its entirety, all together. So, in reference to a
pl. n.,
as wholes.
| 1828 Carlyle Misc., Goethe (1857) I. 192 The beauty of the Poem as a Whole. 1852 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xix, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptional. 1865 Lecky Ration. (1878) II. vi. 210 How readily nations, considered as wholes, always yield to the spirit of the time. 1912 Engl. Hist. Rev. Oct. 697 A close division in the committee might be reversed on appeal to the cabinet as a whole. |
† b. by the whole:
= wholesale 1.
Obs.| 1592 Greene Upstart Courtier E iv b, If the Currier bought not Lether by the whole of the Tanner, the shomaker might haue it at a more reasonable price. |
c. in (the) whole. (
a) To the full amount, in full, entirely, completely, wholly. (Usually, now always, without
the:
opp. to
in part.)
| c 1440 Jacob's Well 202 Þou art bounde to restore þat thefte in þe hole. 1553 Bradford Serm. Repentance (1574) C v, They..which..wil prate, our merites or workes to satisfy for our syns in part or in whole. 1802–12 Bentham Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827) II. 118 They may have been spurious in the whole, or incorrect in every part. 1826 Southey Let. to H. Taylor 31 Aug. in Life (1850) V. 266 Collecting my stray letters, and selecting such, in whole or in part, as may not unfitly be published. 1855 Neil Boyd's Zion's Flowers Introd. 8 This Work ought to be printed in whole. 1913 Act 3 & 4 Geo. V, c. 20 §123 Any creditors whose claim he has rejected in whole or in part. |
(
b) In total amount, all together, all told, in all. (Almost always with
the.) Now
rare.
| 1551 Sir J. Williams Accompte (Abbotsf. Club 1836) 24 White plate, of course broken siluer.., ccc oz. amountinge in thole. 1552–3 in Feuillerat Revels Edw. VI (1914) 108 Mowldes for the feltmakers to mowlde hattes vpon at xvj{supd} the pece in the hole ijs viij{supd}. 1600 Southampton Crt. Leet Rec. (1906) ii. 336 The expence of powder..w{supc}{suph} charge in the wholle cannott amount vnto lese then..fyfty pownds yerely. c 1720 De Foe Mem. Cavalier (1840) 255 They were..twice our number in the whole. 1754 in Nairne Peerage Evid. (1874) 48 Making up in whole..the sum of nine thousand merks. 1815 Coleridge Let. to Lady Beaumont 3 Apr., Three poems, containing 500 lines in the whole. 1918 Act 8 & 9 Geo. V, c. 27 §1 Any..sums not exceeding in the whole the sum of one million pounds. |
d. on or upon the whole: (
a) on the basis of the affair as a whole; considering the whole of the facts or circumstances; all things considered; ‘taking it all together’. Hence
† (
b) as the upshot, or summing up, of the whole matter; as a final result, ultimately, in conclusion, in fine, in sum; (
c) in respect of the whole, notwithstanding exceptions in detail; in general, for the most part.
The construction with
of (
quot. 1771) is
rare and
obs.| 1698 Collier Immor. Stage 126 Shakespear's Sr. John has some Advantage in his Character... But the Relapser's business, is to sink the Notion, and Murther the Character, and make the Function, despicable: So that upon the whole, Shakespear is by much the gentiler Enemy. 1771 Goldsm. Hist. Eng. III. 392 Upon the whole of this treaty, it was considered as inglorious to the English. 1780 Cowper Adjudged Case 21 On the whole it appears..that the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose. 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. lx, Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains. 1887 Ruskin Præterita II. v. 179 [I] determined that the Alps were, on the whole, best seen from below. |
| (b) 1711 Steele Spect. No. 4 ¶1 Upon the whole I resolved..to go on in my ordinary Way. 1719 De Foe Crusoe ii. (Globe) 328 We came up with them, and in a word, took them all in, being..sixty four Men, Women, and Children... Upon the whole, we found it was a French Merchant Ship. 1768 Goldsm. Good-n. Man Pref., Upon the whole, the author returns his thanks to the public for the favourable reception which ‘The Good-Natured Man’ has met with. a 1774 ― Hist. Greece II. 246 Upon the whole he was unanimously sentenced to die. |
| (c) 1797–1811 Jane Austen Sense & Sens. xlii, She liked him..upon the whole, much better than she had expected. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. iii. I. 327 The clergy were regarded as, on the whole, a plebeian class. 1878 Hutton Scott iii. 34 She made on the whole a very good wife. 1920 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Apr. 266/2 We only have [in King John] the text of the first folio of 1623, but that upon the whole is admitted to be good. |
4. Coal-mining. A seam or portion of coal not yet worked, or in the earlier stage of working: see A. 8 e.
| 1747 Hooson Miner's Dict. G 3, If the Wholes be too Soft, that we think it will let the Forks settle when they come to be weighted, we put a Sill under them. 1883 [see A. 8 e]. |
C. adv. a. Wholly, entirely, fully, perfectly.
Obs. exc. in nonce-use in explicit or implied opposition to
half (and, like that word, sometimes hyphened to the word it qualifies).
| 1338 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 279 Now is Scotland hole at our kynges wille. c 1374 Chaucer Anel. & Arc. 310, I myght als weele kepe Aueryll from Rayne As holde yow trewe and make yowe hoole stedfaste. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 136 Al the world in Orient Was hol at his comandement. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2068 That ye haue me susprised so And hole myn herte taken me fro. a 1500 Chaucer's Dreme 5 With her mantle whole couert. a 1533 Ld. Berners Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. xiii. (1535) G ij b, I am hole ignorant of this yonge mans lyuynge. 1535 Coverdale Jer. xlii. 15 Yf ye be whole purposed to go in to Egipte. 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. i. viii. 8 b, Mayden slaues..being commonly whole naked. a 1586 Satir. Poems Reform. xxxv. 26 Mortounis race To covatice wes hoill Inclynde. 1656 Cowley Mistr., Innoc. Ill iii, The ills thou dost are whole thine own. 1784 Cowper Task i. 608 War and the chase engross the savage whole. 1815 Scott Guy M. xliv, Laying a half-dirty cloth upon a whole-dirty deal table. 1854 R. S. Surtees Handley Cr. xxvii, The half-dressed groom would whole-dress the horse. 1905 F. T. Barton Sporting Dogs 204 A black-and-tan sire and dam produce a whole-red puppy. |
† b. Pleonastically emphasized by
all;
occas. = In all, altogether.
Obs. This may often be construed as
adj.:
cf. A. 7.
| 1390 Gower Conf. II. 157 Ytaile al hol thei overcome. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2363, I..comaunde thee That in oo place thou sette all hoole Thyn herte withoute halfen doole. c 1450 Merlin 317, I putte me all hooll in youre ordenaunce. 1481 Caxton Godfrey x. 33 Alle the peple hool fledde to fore hym. Ibid. lvi. 97 This bataylle endured wel an houre al hoole. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. viii. (Percy Soc.) 31 As after this shall appere more openly, All hole exprest by dame Phylosophy. |
† c. Qualifying a following
adv., forming
advb. phr. (in which
whole may sometimes be construed as
adj.), as
whole out, throughout;
whole together, all together (
occas., altogether, entirely).
| a 1425 Cursor M. 13303 (Trin.) Twelue were þei to telle in dole Whenne þei were to gider hole. c 1430 Freemasonry (1840) 15 Alle the masonus..Wol stonde togedur hol y-fere. 1535 Coverdale 1 Esdras vi. 28 Also, that they shall buylde the house of the Lorde whole vp. 1551 Turner Herbal i. Kj, Some call it wylde succory: but it is hole together smaller. 1562 Ibid. ii. 50 b, The bark, pill, or shell of the Citron, is dry and hote in the thyrde degre hole out. 1677–8 Marvell Corr. Wks. (Grosart) II. 595 The Commons were yesterday taken up..in hearing the cause..which not having..heard whole out, they orderd for to-morrow. |
D. Special Collocations and Combinations.
1. The
adj. qualifying a
n., forming phrases used in special senses:
whole caboodle: see
caboodle;
† whole cannon,
† whole culverin, a cannon or culverin of the full size, as distinguished from a
demi-cannon or
demi-culverin (also
fig. and
attrib.);
wholefood, unrefined food containing no artificial additives; an article or kind of such food;
whole hog, in the slang
phr. to go to the whole hog (see
hog n.1 11 b): also (
usu. with hyphen)
attrib. as adj., thorough-going, out-and-out; hence nonce-derivatives, as
whole-hogger,
whole-hoggery,
whole-hoggism,
whole-hoggite;
whole-hogging adj. = whole-hog adj.;
whole kit and boiling, etc.: see
kit n.1 3;
whole meal, meal or flour made from the whole grain of wheat, etc. (sometimes including the bran); also
attrib.; also (
colloq.), a wholemeal loaf;
whole milk, milk from which no constituents have been removed; also
attrib.;
whole-moulding Ship-building, name for an old method of forming the principal parts of a vessel, now used only for boats;
cf. quot. c 1850
s.v. whole-moulded in 2 d;
whole nine yards U.S. colloq., everything, the whole lot; also as
adv., all the way;
whole note Mus.,
† (
a) a whole tone or major second, as distinguished from a ‘half note’ or semitone; (
b) a semibreve, as the longest note in ordinary use (now
U.S.);
whole plate Photogr., see
plate n. 5 c; also
attrib.;
whole shift, in violin-playing (see
shift n. 15);
whole silk [
tr. med.L. (
h)olosericum,
ad. Gr. ὁλοσηρικός,
f. ὅλος whole + σηρικός of silk], stuff consisting entirely of silk;
whole-stitch Lace-making, a stitch in which the threads are woven together as in cloth;
whole tone Mus. = whole note (a);
whole-tone scale (see
quot. 1928);
freq. with reference to compositions based on this scale, particularly those of Debussy;
whole wheat, wheat which has not been deprived of some constituents by sifting;
usu. attrib. (with hyphen or as one word), designating flour or foodstuffs made from this. See also
whole cloth,
wholesale.
| 1666 Lond. Gaz. No. 65/2 Designing the building of twelve new Ships,..intending they shall carry a hundred Brass Guns a piece, and the lower Tyre *whole Cannon. 1723 E. Stone tr. Bion's Math. Instrum. v. iv. (1758) 147 Ordnance..an Eight-Pounder, a Demi-Culverin, a Twelve-Pounder, a Whole-Culverin, a Twenty-four-Pounder, a Demi-Cannon, Bastard-Cannon, and a Whole-Cannon. |
| 1598 Marston Sco. Villanie i. iv. D 3, With *whole culuering raging othes to teare The vault of heauen. 1647 Ward Simple Cobler (1843) 85 Ye talke one to another with whole Culvering and Canon. 1723 [see whole cannon]. |
| 1960 Mother Earth Oct. 341 We should like to hear from further growers who may have available supplies of *wholefood, especially winter salads, parsnips [etc.]. 1971 It 2–16 June 23/3 (Advt.), The Country Bizarre is a little seasonal magazine on traditions, crafts..whole food culture, poetry, drawings. 1978 Peace News 25 Aug. 19/3 (Advt.), If you are interested in wholefoods, running a shop collectively and a political awareness of food please contact us. 1980 Times 21 Feb. 12/3 The longest lunch queues in London now are for wholefood... Vegetarian restaurants and health food shops are not new. What is changing is their style. |
| 1829 Virginia Herald (Fredericksburg) 28 Mar. 2/3 Of late he has shown a disposition to become ‘a *whole hog man’. 1830–1876 Whole hog [see hog n.1 11 b]. 1855 I. C. Pray Mem. J. G. Bennett 141 James Gordon Bennett..is a thoroughgoing, ‘whole-hog’ Jackson man. 1935 Planning 23 Apr. 8 Once you start planning you cannot stop half-way, and whole-hog planning means tyranny. 1956 N. Pevsner Englishness of Eng. Art iii. 61 In the architecture of about 1900 there is in England the fresh yet friendly and human style of Voysey, not the whole-hog throwing overboard of all traditions as in Frank Lloyd Wright in America. 1977 Rolling Stone 30 June 69/2 My guess is that few white Rhodesian soldiers out there in the bush are wholehog white supremacists anymore. |
| 1903 Daily Chron. 14 Oct. 4/4 The Chamberlainite party of ‘*whole hoggers’. 1904 Daily Chron. 28 July 5/6 The country is sick of the whole-hoggers, the half-hoggers,..and the whole lot of them. 1907 E. Nesbit Enchanted Castle xi. 333 Your ancestors were whole-hoggers. They have done the thing as it should be done—every detail attended to. 1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xxix. 438 He is such a whole-hogger. 1923 R. Macaulay Told by Idiot i. xvii. 60 Stanley was like that—enthusiastic, headlong, a deep plunger, a whole-hogger. 1966 Listener 26 May 749/1 In the matter of theatre censorship, I am a whole-hogger. |
| 1834 Southey Doctor Interch. xvi, The *Whole-hoggery in the House of Commons. |
| 1934 C. Lambert Music Ho! v. 301 He [sc. Berg] cannot be described as a *wholehogging atonalist. 1943 Wyndham Lewis Let. 24 Nov. (1963) 370 He is a whole-hogging Thomist. 1960 Guardian 27 June 7/2 Whole-hogging festival visitors. |
| 1838 Carlisle Patriot 18 Aug. 2/5 The quaint version which the Times gave the other day of ‘*whole hoggism’. 1848 Blackw. Mag. July 54 Purge the land of moderatism and anti-whole-hog-ism. 1906 Westm. Gaz. 23 Jan. 7/2 A Balfourite with leanings towards ‘whole-hoggism’. |
| 1840 *Whole-hoggites [see hog n.1 11 b]. |
| 1620 Venner Via Recta i. 18 Bread is also wont to bee made of the *whole meale, from which the bran is not separated. 1828 Keightley Fairy Mythol. II. 182 A nice half griddle of whole-meal bread. 1903 Ld. W. B. N[evill] Penal Serv. xv. 211 Neat little brown wholemeal loaves. 1904–5 Civil Service Supply Price-list 60 Whole Meal..per 7 lb. bag, 1/4. Ibid. 128 Biscuits, Cabin, Navy, and Whole Meal. 1967 Wholemeal [see Hovis]. 1983 A. T. Ellis Other Side of Fire xvi. 102 Small white, small wholemeal and a couple of croissants. |
| 1970 Kenya Farmer Feb. 9/2 We send 110 gallons *whole milk per day to Eldoret and separate all the rest for rearing stock. 1977 Lancet 19 Feb. 388/1 Sensitivity to cow's whole milk was investigated in six patients. 1982 P. Rance Great Brit. Cheese Bk. i. v. 97 These wholemilk cheeses, traditional in this area, vary considerably. |
| 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XVII. 405/1 Of the Method of *Whole-moulding..used by the ancients, and which still continues in use among those unacquainted with the more proper methods. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 159 By whole-moulding, no more is narrowed at the floor than at the main breadth. |
| 1970 Word Watching Apr. 7/2 *Whole nine yards, the entire thing. 1981 Washington Post 16 Jan. (Weekend sect.) 20/3 A Japanese disaster film, Virus, goes the whole nine yards, showing the city as a deserted freeway underpass. 1983 Aviation Week 7 Mar. 46/2 The Army came out and gave us the whole nine yards on how they use space systems. |
| 1597 T. Morley Introd. Mus. Annot. ¶ b, A *whole note is that which the Latines call integer tonus, and is that distance which is betwixt any two notes, except mi & fa. 1698 Phil. Trans. XX. 250 The Difference of [a Fourth and Fifth] they agreed to call a Tone; which we now call a Whole note. |
| 1890 Science-Gossip XXVI. 18/2 Printing from *whole-plate negatives. |
| 1876 Rock Text. Fabr. 9 The first emperor who wore *whole silk for clothing. |
| 1882 Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlework, *Whole Stitch, a name sometimes applied to the Cloth Stitch of Pillow Lace. |
| 1897 J. S. Shedlock tr. Riemann's Dict. Mus. 863/1 *Whole-tone, the larger of the two progressions by tone within the fundamental scale. 1928 Melody Maker Feb. 209/3 The *Whole Tone Scale..is composed entirely of intervals of a Tone, thus having only seven degrees between its Tonic and its Octave. It has only come into use quite recently and is employed by the school devoting itself to..‘futuristic’ harmony. 1934 [see eleventh n. 2]. 1935 G. Abraham Stud. Russ. Mus. iv. 77 Dargomïzhsky's fondness for the sharpened fifth of the scale, for the augmented triad which is, so to speak, the ‘common chord’ of the whole-tone scale. 1952 B. Ulanov Hist. Jazz in Amer. (1958) 284 The augmented chords and whole-tone melodies reveal their Debussyan source more clearly. 1977 Time 21 Mar. 62/3 His inclusion of Russian folk music, Turkish airs, even the whole-tone scale from the Orient (more than half a century before Debussy) suggests that he was exceptionally curious and openminded. |
| 1903 *Wholewheat bread [see peanut butter s.v. peanut 3 a]. 1946 Sun (Baltimore) 14 Feb. 14/1 As everybody knows, whole-wheat bread is more nutritious than white bread. 1971 Times 11 Sept. 10/4 The distinction between galettes (made from buckwheat or wholewheat) and crêpes. 1980 Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 20 Jan. 57/1 The most basic, natural loaves of all, contain 100 per cent whole wheat flour. |
2. a. Combinations formed of phrases like those in 1 used
attrib. or as
adjs., in sense ‘Consisting of, made with, relating to, comprising, or occupying the or a whole{ddd}’, as
whole-arm,
whole-body,
whole-cane,
whole-day,
whole-fruit,
whole-grain,
whole-house,
whole-width,
whole-word,
whole-world; (in sense A. 9)
whole-leather,
whole-worsted. (See also
whole-colour, etc. in d.)
| 1410 Rolls of Parlt. III. 637/2 Lesquelles sount appellez an Hol-worsted bed. 1820 Lamb Elia Ser. i. Christ's Hospital, The haunting memory of those whole-day leaves. 1866 Howells Venet. Life xvi. 246 A grand, whole-arm movement. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 9 Oct. 6/3 A whole-leather boot could not be honestly purchased under 7s. 11d. 1904–5 Civil Service Supply Price-list Index p. cii, Whole Fruit Jam. 1910 Encycl. Brit. II. 28/1 (Angling), A light whole-cane rod of stiff build. [Cf. split-cane, quot. 1890 s.v. split ppl. a. 2.] 1920 Cornh. Mag. Nov. 533 A whole-day tramp across country. 1947 Radiology XLIX. 283/1 To determine whether a daily dose of whole-body irradiation when given over a period of several hours produced the same injury as when given within minutes. 1952 Archit. Rev. CXI. 212/2 The Radiation ‘whole-house’ warming system. 1960 Farmer & Stockbreeder 15 Mar. (Suppl.) 10/1 Second-class protein..is found in whole-grain cereals, nuts, lentils and soya beans. 1961 Lancet 7 Oct. 784/2 Modification..would require interference with the normal whole-body response to injury. 1964 P. A. D. MacCarthy in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 157 This in turn facilitates the recognition of whole-word patterns. 1983 P. Niesewand Scimitar xx. 566 Lyle and Ross were..subjected to everything from lumbar punctures and sperm tests to whole body scans. 1975 Language for Life (Dept. Educ. & Sci.) xxvi. 521 Word recognition is not merely a matter of learning unique whole-word forms. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 19 June 8 (Advt.), Your Trane Comfort Corps consultant is a full-time specialist in whole-house air conditioning. 1976 Woman's Day (U.S.) Nov. 158/2 Unleavened whole-grain bread should be served generously to assure that your family fills up on fat- and cholesterol-free foods. 1977 Times 10 Sept. 2/1 Patients from several London hospitals are being sent to BUPA's medical centre to be X-rayed by their EMI whole-body scanner. 1980 Redbook Oct. 220/1 Most important, the teaching of beginning reading was dominated by the ‘whole-word’ or ‘look-say’ method, in which children learned to recognize entire words, rather than by the method of ‘phonics’ in which they learned to sound out letters and groups of letters. 1985 N.Y. Times Mag. 6 Jan. 6/4 Popular among runners of marathons who stuff themselves with whole-grain pasta before trotting off to the day's race. |
b. Parasynthetic comb., in various senses of the
adj., as
whole-backed,
whole-bodied,
whole-headed,
whole-maned,
whole-skinned,
whole-skirted adjs. (See also
whole-chested, etc. in d.)
| 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 288 The Istrian Horsses are of good able feete, very straight, *whole backt, and hollow. |
| 1577 Harrison England iii. xii. 111/1 in Holinshed, Flies..whether they be cut wasted, or *whole bodyed..are voyde of poyson. 1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 660 If the carts are whole-bodied, the steward proceeds after the back-board is removed, to hawk out the dung; but if they are tilt or coup-carts [etc.]. |
| 1611 Cotgr., Ail masle, the *Whole-headed Garlicke. |
| 1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. 503 *Whole-leaved Water hemp Agrimony. |
| 1685 Lond. Gaz. No. 2069/4 A bright bay Gelding..*whole maned unless cut since. |
| 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §56 If thou bye kye or oxen to feede,..loke well..that he..be *hoole-mouthed, and want no tethe. 1776 Da Costa Elem. Conchol. 209 (Jod.) The first genus, which he calls ‘wholemouthed’..is my genus of ‘turbo’ among the..snails. |
| 1624 Fletcher Rule a Wife i. i, He is *whole skin'd, has no hurt yet. |
| 1683 Lond. Gaz. No. 1910/4 A new *whole skirted Black Saddle having the Seat of Velvet and the Skirts of Hogs skin. |
c. Advb. comb., as
whole-bred (see d); see also C.
d. Special
Combs.:
whole-bred a. [
cf. A. 9 a], of pure breed (
opp. to
half-bred 1);
† whole-chase boot (see
quot.);
† whole-chested a., having a sound chest or breast;
fig. loyal-hearted;
whole-colour,
-coloured adjs. [A. 9], of the same colour throughout, concolor;
whole-eared (
-ɪəd)
a., (
a) having the ears whole,
i.e. not cut; (
b) listening ‘with all one's ears’,
i.e. intently; so
whole-eyed (
-aɪd)
a., gazing intently;
whole-earther colloq., somebody who is actively concerned about the protection and wise use of natural resources and wildlife;
whole-feather [A. 9], a variety of pigeon having all the feathers of one colour; so
whole-feathered (
-əd)
a.;
whole-hearted a., (of a person) having one's whole heart in something, completely devoted (
orig. and chiefly
U.S.); (of an action, etc.) done with one's whole heart, thoroughly earnest or sincere; hence
whole-heartedly adv.,
whole-heartedness;
whole-hoofed (
-huːft)
a. [A. 8], having undivided hoofs, solidungulate;
whole-length a., (
a) of a portrait, etc. representing the whole human figure, usually standing; also
ellipt. as
n. a whole-length portrait or statue; (
b)
gen. extending through the whole length; exhibited at full length;
whole-life a., pertaining to or designating an insurance policy for which the premiums are payable until the death of the insured person;
whole-minded a., giving one's whole mind to something, completely interested; hence
whole-mindedness;
whole-moulded a. Ship-building, see
quot. c 1850, and
cf. whole moulding in 1;
whole-number rule Physics, the empirical law that the atomic weights of the elements are mostly close to being whole numbers;
whole-pull Change-ringing, see
quots. (
opp. to
half-pull,
half- II. n);
whole rock a. Geol., designating the use of a complete rock sample in an analytical procedure, as distinct from the individual minerals composing it;
whole-sail a., said of a wind in which a ship (
esp. a yacht) can carry full sail;
whole-seas humorous nonce-wd., quite drunk (after
half-seas, short for
half-seas-over 2);
whole-souled (
-səʊld)
a. orig. U.S. = whole-hearted;
† whole-steal nonce-wd., ‘wholesale’ theft;
† whole-stone a., (of lime) unslaked;
whole-time a., occupying the whole of some particular time,
esp. of the working time; (of a person) employed during the whole time;
whole-timer = full-timer;
whole-working Coal-mining, see
quot., and
cf. A. 8 e, B. 4.
| 1846 J. Baxter's Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. p. xxi, A *whole-bred Southdown fat wether. |
| 1656 Blount Glossogr., *Whole-chase Boots, are whole hunting, or large riding Boots. |
| 1603 J. Davies Microcosmos 37 We are *whole-chested, and our Breastes doe hold A single Hart, that is as good, as great. 1633 Massinger Guardian iv. i, A well timbred youth..he's whole chested too. |
| 1896 Westm. Gaz. 2 Dec. 1/2 The collection includes a series of *whole-colour porcelain and soft paste blue and white. |
| 1857 T. Moore Handbk. Brit. Ferns (ed. 3) 42 Scales *whole-coloured or indistinctly two-coloured. 1907 R. Leighton's New Bk. Dog 429 The litter will consist of some whole-coloured blacks, and some whole-coloured whites. |
| 1681 Lond. Gaz. No. 1633/4 A large light Brindle Mastiff Dog,..*whole-Ear'd. |
| 1975 Times 5 Aug. 12/7 The ‘amenity lobby’..includes a new wave of ‘*whole earthers’: notably the Conservation Society founded in 1966..and Friends of the Earth. 1980 Blair & Ketchum's Country Jrnl. Oct. 67/1 It includes..neo-Jeffersonians, back-to-the-landers, whole-earthers, communists, and neopioneers seeking to revive old country ways. |
| 1918 W. J. Locke Rough Road xv, The village turned out to listen to them in *whole-eyed and whole-eared wonder. |
| 1879 L. Wright Pigeon Keeper 118 A Splash..may often be mated to advantage with a *Whole-feather. |
| 1683 Lond. Gaz. No. 1799/4 A large black Mayled, *whole Feathered, and thorough mewed Falcon. |
| 1840 Channing Let. to Miss Aikin 18 July, What a *whole-hearted man! as we Yankees say. 1855 Pusey Doctr. Real Presence Notes 366 The most perfect and whole-hearted repentance. 1901 Scotsman 14 Mar. 6/4 The whole-hearted support of British policy by the Canadians. |
| 1893 in Barrows World's Parl. Relig. I. 534 Socially, we unite *whole-heartedly and without reservation with our non-Jewish fellow-citizens. |
| 1854 Faber Growth in Holiness iv. 60 The great lesson of the Crucifix is *whole-heartedness with God. 1882 Farrar Early Chr. iv. xxii. II. 43 A wavering disposition,..a want of whole-heartedness, a dualism of life and aim. |
| 1601 Holland Pliny viii. xxi. I. 206 In India, there be found bœufes *whole hoofed, with single hornes. Ibid. xi. xlvi. 351 In some parts of Sclavonia, the Swine are not cloven-footed, but whole houfed. 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 187 The Quadrupeda, whereof some are µονώνυχα, whole-hooft, such as Asses, Mules, Horses. 1835 [see soliped a.]. |
| 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1768) III. 259 Your drawings..are all taken down; as is also your own *whole-length picture. 1752 Chesterfield Let. to Son 28 Nov., Undoubted originals (whether heads, half-lengths, or whole-lengths, no matter) of Cardinals Richelieu, Marzarin, and Retz. 1817 T. F. Dibdin Bibliogr. Decam. II. 434 note, A small whole length of Joseph with an angel above. 1818 Hazlitt Engl. Poets iv. 139 The faultless whole-length mirror that reflected his own person. 1856 Faris El-Shidiac Pract. Gram. Arabic 18 Swelling the grammar unnecessarily with a great number of whole-length conjugations. 1865 C. R. Leslie & T. Taylor Sir Joshua Reynolds I. 104 The portrait which tended most to establish his reputation was a whole-length of Captain Keppel..on a sandy beach. |
| 1845 Williams's Directory of Leeds 46 (Advt.), One-third of the ‘*Whole Life’ Premium may remain unpaid..as a Debt upon the Policy. 1881 Harper's Mag. Jan. 79/1 Never take a whole-life policy to embarrass the declining and unproductive years of life. 1977 National Observer (U.S.) 15 Jan. 9/2 Whole life—also called cash-value, straight, permanent, ordinary and endowment life—combines insurance protection with a savings or endowment plan. |
| 1906 Lit. World 15 Nov. 504/2 Whilst admitting..the great spirit and immense intellectuality of the woman, he cannot but feel..a lack of sincerity, of *whole-mindedness. |
| 1797 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XVII. 406/1 Fixing a point for the aftermost timber that is *whole moulded. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 159 Whole-moulded, a term applied to the bodies of those ships which are so constructed that one mould made to the midship bend, with the addition of a floor hollow, will mould all the timbers, below the main breadth, in the square body. |
| [1919 F. W. Aston in Nature 18 Dec. 393/2 Of more than forty different values of atomic and molecular mass so far measured all, without a single exception, fall on whole numbers.] 1923 E. N. da C. Andrade Structure of Atom vii. 111 The *whole number rule allows us to suppose that all nuclei are built up of the same mass elements, i.e. protons. 1967 Oldenberg & Holladay Introd. Atomic & Nuclear Physics (ed. 4) xvi. 238 The great simplification was finally introduced through the whole-number rule, which indicates a few fundamental particles as building blocks of all matter. |
| 1668 [Stedman] Tintinnalogia (1671) 54 *Whole-pulls, is to Ring two Rounds in one change, that is, Fore-stroke and Back-stroke,..so that every time you pull down the bells at Sally, you make a new change differing from that at the Back-stroke next before; this Whole-pulls was altogether practised in former time. 1872 Ellacombe Bells of Ch. in Ch. Bells Devon iii. 228 A ‘whole pull’ includes swinging the bell round twice, off from the balance, and round up to the balance again... In whole-pull ringing each bell makes a whole pull to every change. |
| [1955 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. LXVI. 1711 Approximate minimum ages have been determined for the Cranberry gneiss..and Henderson gneiss by measuring A40/K40 ratios on samples of the whole rock.] 1964 Geochem. Internat. I. 739/2 It was decided to determine the age of the granites by the Rb-Sr method on *whole rock samples. 1979 A. W. Hofmann in Jäger & Hunziker Isotope Geol. 215 The evidence for a Caledonian age of the pre-Hercynian gneisses rests in part on two whole-rock Rb-Sr isochrons. |
| 1885 Sat. Rev. 3 Jan. 11/1 The heeling occurs only in strong *whole⁓sail winds. |
| 1821 Joseph the Book-man 85 Some, half-seas, like fools do swagger, While other some, *whole-seas, do stagger. |
| 1834 Kentuckian in New York I. 190 (Thornton) [The New-Yorkers] are a *whole-souled people. 1863 Hawthorne Our Old Home, Haunts of Burns II. 72 A bust of Burns..looking..not so warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. 1893 F. Adams New Egypt 209 A most vigorous and whole-souled resentment. |
| 1649 Lightfoot Battle with Wasp's Nest Wks. 1825 I. 423 Whom you have so unworthily used, as to steal his arguments by *whole-steal. |
| 1703 Churchw. Acc. Bucknall, Lincs. (MS.), 3 Chalden of *wholestone Lime. |
| 1906 Athenæum 13 Oct. 421/3 The Inspector of Colleges..will be a *whole-time officer of the University. 1918 Act 8 Geo. V. c. 5 Sched. i. §4 Engaged in whole-time work..of national importance. |
| 1869 Daily News 18 Dec., To see that all the children of a district attend some school either as *whole-timers or half-timers. |
| 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., *Whole-working, Newc., working where the ground is still whole, i.e., has not been penetrated as yet with breasts. Opposed to pillar⁓work, or the extraction of pillars left to support previous work. |
Add:
[A.] [II.] [7.] d. In
quasi-adv. phr. a whole lot: very much. Usu. prefixed to comparatives.
Cf. lot n. 9.
colloq. (
orig. U.S.).
| 1907 C. E. Mulford Bar-20 xxiv. 345 She's a hummer—stands two hands under him an' is a whole lot prettier than that picture Cowan has got over his bar. 1922 S. Lewis Babbitt ii. 22 I'll bet I make a whole lot more money than some of those tin-horns who [etc.]. 1969 [see screw n.1 12 a]. 1988 Star (Tarrytown, N.Y.) 12 Apr. 39/1 She doesn't work a whole lot. |
▸
whole enchilada n. slang (chiefly
N. Amer.) (with
the) a thing in its entirety; the whole situation; everything, ‘the works’.
| 1960 Los Angeles Times 6 Mar. d8 Indeed it is, complete with swimming, hiking, tennis—the *whole enchilada. 1993 Network June–Aug. 42/2 Groove is key, but it's not the whole enchilada. 2003 Time Out N.Y. 14 Aug. 90/1 It was originally released in the U.S. with one story missing; here's your chance to see the whole enchilada. |
▸
whole language n. Educ. an approach to teaching children basic language skills which emphasizes contextual language use, rather than traditional instruction in phonics, grammar, spelling, etc.
| [1973 Reading Res. Q. 8 489 Youngsters have built their perceptual categories from whole language and not by learning each phoneme in isolation or in syllables.] 1980 Learning Disability Q. 3 63/2 A *whole-language system attempts to develop proficiency in reading and other language components by taking advantage of the natural relationships which exist among all components. 1985 Lang. Arts Nov. 717 Whole language..goes beyond the simple delineation of a series of teaching strategies to describe a shift in the way in which teachers think about and practice their art. 2004 Vancouver Province (Nexis) 29 Dec. a18 Theories such as ‘whole language’ (children need only understand concepts, not spelling or grammar)..have failed to deliver. |
▪ II. † whole, v. Obs. Also 5
hoole, 5–6
hole.
[f. whole a.] I. 1. trans. To make whole, heal, cure.
| 14.. Stockholm Med. MS. i. 233 in Anglia XVIII. 301 Þe cold festre xal be holyd with hete. c 1440 J. Capgrave Life St. Kath. v. 1952 With whiche oyle of soores alle grevauns Whiche men suffre, it wil be hooled anoon. c 1450 ― Life St. Gilbert xxxiv. 110 Summe wer holed fro certeyn seknesse be þe merites of þis Seynt. |
2. intr. To become whole; to recover from sickness; to heal, as a wound.
| 14.. Stockholm Med. MS. i. 241 in Anglia XVIII. 301 Of cler hony and rye-flour late bake a kake,..And ley't to þe hole of þe festeryd sor,..And so it schal holyn. 1460–70 Bk. Quinte Essence 15 Þe oolde feble man schal vse þis deuyn drynk..and wiþinne a fewe dayes he schal so hool þat he schal fele him silf of þe statt and þe strenkþe of xl ȝeer. 1690 W. Walker Idiomat. Anglo-Lat. 517 The wounds whole not. |
II. 3. trans. To make into a whole; to assemble or unite.
| 1443–9 Pecock Donet xvii. (1921) 186 Þese spechis hoolid and maad of þe ij seid maners. a 1577 Sir T. Smith Commw. Eng. (1609) 18 The Captaine wholed a multitude of people gathered..of diuers Nations..and beginneth a Commonwealth after this maner. |
▪ III. † whole = who will (
cf. ile).
| 1606 Marston Parasit. v. H 4, Whole kisse thee now? whole court thee now? whole ha thee now? |
▪ IV. whole obs. form of
hole n.