w ogóle

Polish edit

Alternative forms edit

wogule (proscribed)

Etymology edit

Literally, “in general”.

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /vɔˈɡu.lɛ/, (unstressed, colloquial) /ˈvɔɡ.lɛ/
Audio (file)
Rhymes: -ulɛ, -ɔɡlɛ

Particle edit

w ogóle

(idiomatic) by the way
Synonym: swoją drogą
(idiomatic) in general, generally
Synonyms: ogólnie, w ogólności
(idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) at all, even
W ogóle nie wiem, o czym mówisz. ― I don't know at all what you are talking about.

Czy on w ogóle to zrobił? ― Did he even do this?

Trivia edit

According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), w ogóle is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 21 times in scientific texts, 2 times in news, 36 times in essays, 39 times in fiction, and 58 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 156 times, making it the 370th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.^[1]

References edit

^ Ida Kurcz (1990) “w ogóle”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language]‎^[1] (in Polish), volume 2, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 650