whole · Contextualize

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ilos Proto-Germanic *hailaz Proto-West Germanic *hail Old English hāl Middle English hol English 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).

inherited from *kéh₂ilos✻
inherited from *hailaz✻
inherited from *hail✻
inherited from hāl
inherited from whol

Definitions

1
Entire, undivided.
- I ate a whole fish.
- Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. […] He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
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.
3
From which none of its constituents has been removed.
- whole wheat; whole milk
›+ 4 more definitionsshow fewer
1. As yet unworked.
2. 5
  In entirety
  In entirety; entirely; wholly.
  - I ate a fish whole!
  - That’s a whole other story.
3. 6
  Something complete, without any parts missing.
  - This variety of fascinating details didn't fall together into an enjoyable, coherent whole.
4. An entirety.

The neighborhood

Derived

20 whole dollars, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as a whole, a whole 'nother, a whole nother, committee of the whole, double whole, double whole note, go the whole hog, go whole hog, go the whole pile, have one's whole life ahead of one, heart-whole, make whole, mean the whole world to, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, on the whole, out of whole cloth, part-whole bias, part-whole model, put one's whole pussy into, quadruple whole, quadruple whole note, run the whole show, smoke the whole pack, the whole bang shoot, the whole caboodle, the whole nine yards, the whole shop, the whole while, the whole world, the whole world and his dog, twenty whole dollars, unwholesome, upon the whole, upon the whole matter, whole-ass, whole bag of tricks, whole ball of wax, whole blood · +60 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for whole. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.