whole

whole¹ W1S1 [həul US houl] adj

[: Old English; Origin: hal 'healthy, unhurt, complete']

1.) [only before noun]

all of something

= ↑entire

▪ You have your whole life ahead of you!

▪ His whole attitude bugs me.

▪ We ate the whole cake in about ten minutes.

▪ The whole thing (=everything about the situation) just makes me sick.

▪ We just sat around and watched TV the whole time (=the only thing we did was watch television) .

▪ I don't believe she's telling us the whole story (=all the facts) .

▪ It was months before the whole truth came out.

the whole school/country/village etc

(=all the people in a school, country etc)

▪ The whole town came out for the parade.

2.) whole lot informal a) a whole lot

very much

▪ I'm feeling a whole lot better.

▪ I don't cook a whole lot anymore.

b) a whole lot (of sth)

a large quantity or number

▪ We're going to have a whole lot of problems if we don't finish this by tomorrow.

▪ You can find a nice house in this neighborhood, and you don't have to spend a whole lot.

c) the whole lot

especially BrE all of something

▪ She said she'd give me the whole lot for 20 pounds.

3.) a whole range/series/variety etc (of sth)

used to emphasize that there are a lot of things of a similar type

▪ There are a whole range of sizes to choose from.

4.) complete and not divided or broken into parts

▪ Place a whole onion inside the chicken.

▪ a snake swallowing a mouse whole (=swallowing it without chewing)

5.) the whole point (of sth)

used to emphasize the purpose for doing something, especially when you believe this is unclear or has been forgotten

▪ I thought the whole point of the meeting was to decide which offer to accept.

6.) in the whole (wide) world informal

an expression meaning 'anywhere' or 'at all', used to emphasize a statement

▪ I have the best job in the whole wide world.

7.) go the whole hog also go whole hog AmE informal to do something as completely or as well as you can, without any limits

▪ I'm gonna go whole hog and have a live band at the barbecue.

8.) the whole nine yards

AmE spoken including everything that is typical of or possible in an activity, situation, set of things etc

▪ Our new apartment complex has a tennis court, swimming pool, playground - the whole nine yards.

>wholeness n [U]

→a whole new ball game at ↑ball game, the whole shebang at ↑shebang,the whole shooting match at ↑shooting match,the whole enchilada at ↑enchilada, ↑wholly

whole ²

whole² W2S3 n

1.) the whole of sth

all of something, especially something that is not a physical object

▪ The whole of the morning was wasted trying to find the documents.

2.) on the whole

used to say that something is generally true

▪ On the whole, I thought the film was pretty good.

3.) as a whole

used to say that all the parts of something are being considered together

▪ This project will be of great benefit to the region as a whole.

4.) [C usually singular]

something that consists of a number of parts, but is considered as a single unit

▪ Two halves make a whole.