English

whole

/həʊl/
Entire, undivided.

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    Origin

    From Middle English whol, hol, hole (“healthy, unhurt, whole”), from Old English hāl (“healthy, safe”), from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, safe, sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ilos (“healthy, whole”).

    The spelling with wh-, attested since ca. 1400, represents an excrescent /w/, which developed in words with initial /(h)ɔː/, /(h)oː/ in southwestern dialects of Middle English. While this pronunciation did not establish itself in the standard language (except in one), the spelling survived in whole and whore, in the former case likely reinforced by a desire to disambiguate from hole.

    Cognates

    Compare West Frisian hiel, Low German heel/heil, Dutch heel, German heil, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hel, Norwegian Nynorsk heil; also Welsh coel (“omen”), Breton kel (“omen, mention”), Old Prussian kails (“healthy”), Old Church Slavonic цѣлъ (cělŭ, “healthy, unhurt”). Related to hale, health, hail, hallow, heal, and holy. False cognate of Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle Englishhol
      • inheritedOld Englishhāl
        • inheritedProto-West Germanic*hail
          • inheritedProto-Germanic*hailaz “healthy; whole”
            • inheritedProto-Indo-European*kéh₂ilos “whole”

    Related: West Frisian hiel, Low German heel, Dutch heel, German heil, Norwegian Bokmål hel, Norwegian Nynorsk heil, Welsh coel, Breton kel, Old Prussian kails, Old Church Slavonic цѣлъ, Ancient Greek ὅλος

    Words built on it: whole-time

    Sources