whole

1 adjective

1 all of something; entire: You have your whole life ahead of you! | His whole attitude bugs me. | the whole school/country/village etc (=all the people in a school, country etc): The whole school meets together once a week. | the whole thing (=everything about a situation): The whole thing just makes me sick.

—see also: the whole of whole 2

2 a whole variety/series/range etc used to emphasize that there are a lot of things of the same type: a whole series of embarrassing defeats

3 complete and not divided or broken into parts: Place a whole onion inside the chicken.

4 the whole point (of) an expression meaning the main idea or reason for something, used especially to emphasize this and make it completely clear: I thought the whole point of the meeting was to decide which offer to accept.

5 in the whole (wide) world an expression meaning `anywhere' or `at all', used to emphasize a statement: You're my best friend in the whole wide world!

6 go the whole hog informal to do something as completely or as well as you can, without any limits: I'm gonna go the whole hog and have a live band at the barbecue.

7 go the whole nine yards AmE spoken to continue doing something until it is completely done and everything has been settled, even if this is difficult

—see also: wholly, a whole new ball game ball game (3), the whole shebang shebang, the whole shooting match shooting match — wholeness noun (U) 2 noun

1 the whole of 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, life was much quieter after John left.

3 as a whole used to say that all the parts of something are being considered: This rule does not only apply to seniors, but to the school as a whole.

4 (countable usually singular) something that consists of a number of parts, but is considered as a single unit: Two halves make a whole.