Talk:holy

Holy and wholly aren't homophones even in accents with the wine-whine merger; the words are distinguished by the length of the sonorant, that is to say 'holy' is pronounced /həʊlɪ/ or /həʊli/, while 'wholly' is pronounced /həʊlːɪ/ or /həʊlːi/, or alternatively holy (/ˈhəʊ.lɪ/) vs wholly (/ˈhəʊl.lɪ/). —This unsigned comment was added by 82.18.218.52 (talk • contribs).

If "unholy" refers to something that is evil or impure, then couldn't "holy" also refer to something that is "good" (as in, benevolent) and pure, rather than it just referring to something that is divine? --41.132.24.35 21:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

We have the sense "Perfect or flawless". Equinox ◑ 21:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

possible that this came from Holi via Hindi from Sanskrit holī ? --DennisDaniels (talk) 10:25, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

No, because it goes back to Old English halig which is quite different and which predates the existence of Hindi, and the presence of cognates such as Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌻𐌰𐌲𐍃 (hailags) shows that it can be traced back hundreds of years earlier. There was no contact between Germanic and the languages of India that far back. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)