Wiktionary

wholly

English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From Middle English holly, holeliche, holliche (also as halely, hallich, etc.), equivalent to whole +‎ -ly. Doublet of holy.

Pronunciation edit

Adverb edit

wholly (not comparable)

  1. Completely and entirely; to the fullest extent.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 14:9:
      And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet haue troden, shall be thine inheritance, and thy childrens for euer, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.
    • 2011 December 19, Kerry Brown, “Kim Jong-il obituary”, in The Guardian:
      With the descent of the cold war, relations between the two countries (for this is, to all intents and purposes, what they became after the end of the war) were almost completely broken off, with whole families split for the ensuing decades, some for ever. This event and its after-effects, along with the war against the Japanese in the 1940s, was to cast a long shadow over the years ahead, and led to the creation of the wholly unprecedented worship of Kim Il-sung, and his elevation to almost God-like status. It was also to create the system in which his son was to occupy almost as impossibly elevated a position.
  2. Exclusively and solely.
    A creature wholly given to brawls and wine.

Synonyms edit

Antonyms edit

Translations edit

to the fullest extent — see completely
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