Meaning of whole in English

whole

adjective

/həʊl/ us

/hoʊl/

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complete or not divided:

I spent the whole day cleaning.

There's still a whole month till my birthday.

After my exercise class, my whole body ached.

The whole town was destroyed by the earthquake.

whole thing This whole thing (= situation) is ridiculous.

whole time Bill does nothing but complain the whole time (= all the time).

whole truth You have to stand up in court and promise to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".

Her dance compositions added a whole (= completely) new dimension to the contemporary dance repertoire.

informal

used to emphasize something:

I have a whole pile of work to do this afternoon.

a whole lot The new computers are a whole lot (= much) faster.

More examplesFewer examples

She gave the whole class extra homework for a week.
The police combed the whole area for evidence.
We've just appointed a coordinator who will oversee the whole project.
They spoke in Russian the whole time.
It seemed as though the whole city had turned out for their team's triumphant homecoming.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Complete and whole

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Linguistics: very & extreme

Grammar

All or whole?

All and whole are determiners. …

All or whole for single entities

We use the whole or the whole of to refer to complete single things and events that are countable and defined: …

All the with uncountable nouns

We use all the and not the whole with uncountable nouns: …

All and whole with plural nouns

We usually use all the and all of the with plural nouns: …

All and whole: typical errors

We don’t use all before a and an: …

Whole

Whole is a determiner. We use whole before nouns and after other determiners (my, the, a/an, their) to talk about quantity. We use it to describe the completeness of something: …

Idioms

go the whole hog
the whole bit
a whole lot
the whole lot

whole

adverb

/həʊl/ us

/hoʊl/

whole adverb (IN ONE PIECE)

as a single object and not in pieces:

The seeds can be eaten whole or ground in a coffee grinder.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Complete and whole

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whole adverb (COMPLETELY)

informal

completely:

Now he's arrived, it's a whole different situation.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistics: very & extreme

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Complete and whole

Grammar

All or whole?

All and whole are determiners. …

All or whole for single entities

We use the whole or the whole of to refer to complete single things and events that are countable and defined: …

All the with uncountable nouns

We use all the and not the whole with uncountable nouns: …

All and whole with plural nouns

We usually use all the and all of the with plural nouns: …

All and whole: typical errors

We don’t use all before a and an: …

whole

noun [ C usually singular ]

/həʊl/ us

/hoʊl/

a complete thing:

Two halves make a whole.

the whole You should consider each problem as an aspect of the whole.

the whole of something

all of something:

I'll be on holiday the whole of next week.

More examplesFewer examples

I don't know anything about the workings of other departments or about the organization as a whole.
The improvement in sales figures had a beneficial effect on the company as a whole.
She drinks a lot less now, to the benefit of her health as a whole.
In gestalt psychology and gestalt psychotherapy, people's thoughts and emotions are seen as complex wholes.
Four quarters make a whole.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Complete and whole

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Grammar

All or whole?

All and whole are determiners. …

All or whole for single entities

We use the whole or the whole of to refer to complete single things and events that are countable and defined: …

All the with uncountable nouns

We use all the and not the whole with uncountable nouns: …

All and whole with plural nouns

We usually use all the and all of the with plural nouns: …

All and whole: typical errors

We don’t use all before a and an: …

Idioms

as a whole

on the whole

(Definition of whole from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

whole | American Dictionary

whole

adjective [ not gradable ]

/hoʊl/

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all of something; the full amount:

Painting the two rooms will take the whole day.

He cooked a meal for the whole school.

Whole can also mean in one piece:

You can eat the fruit whole or cut it up.

infml Whole can also be used to emphasize something:

I’ve got a whole lot to do this afternoon.

Idiom

the whole bit

whole

noun [ C/U ]

/hoʊl/

all of the parts of something considered together as one thing, or all of something:

[ C ] Two halves make a whole.

[ U ] She’ll be away the whole of next month.

Idiom

on the whole

(Definition of whole from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of whole

whole

Ordinary women's inferior rights to land were a key aspect in women's subordination as a whole.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The citizens of the country constitute an organic whole, which is integrated by the general will of the masses.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Soldiers were to be seen there as they were to be seen everywhere - but on the whole these were pacific regions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Higher ranks are given to sources that are more generalizable to the population as a whole.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The multiple roles that people hold within their family, community, work, and society as a whole work to define their sense of self.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Formal political influence over policy increased gradually over the whole period at the expense of technical influence, and social objectives were given priority.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

They were then told to put the sounds together to say the whole word.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Are we being told the whole story, or only that part of it which suits the author's purpose?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Most fruitful to that study is understanding the ' fundamental symbolic system underlying the whole range of ritual institutions ' (145).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Too often, disease control methods, or even whole health care systems, have been transplanted from one country to another.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Within these two themes, most experimenters have chosen a whole organism approach and only a handful a biochemical route (appendix 6).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It encompasses the whole learning process, including learning styles and strategies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

While there may be some truth in each of these suggestions, none of them reveals the whole picture.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Thus, his whole view is not one of double irrelevance.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A cache line consists of many cells, and we have assumed that the whole line would be transferred.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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