• All

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /ɔːl/
    • US IPA: /É”l/
    • cot-caught IPA: /É‘l/
    • Rhymes: -ɔːl

    Origin

    From Middle English, from Old English eall ("all, every, entire, whole, universal"), from Proto-Germanic *allaz ("all, whole, every"), from Proto-Indo-European *al- ("all"). Cognate with West Frisian al ("all"), Dutch al ("all"), German all ("all"), Swedish all ("all"), Icelandic allur ("all"), Welsh oll ("all"), Irish uile ("all"), Lithuanian aliái ("all, each, every"), Albanian lloj ("type, sort, variegated").

    Full definition of all

    Adverb

    all

    1. (degree) intensifier.You’ve got it all wrong.She was all, “Whatever.”
    2. Apiece; each.The score was 30 all when the rain delay started.
      • 1878, Gerard Manley Hopkins, His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,With hempen strands in spray
    3. (degree) So much.Don't want to go? All the better since I lost the tickets.
    4. (dialect, Pennsylvania) All gone; dead.The butter is all.
    5. (obsolete, poetic) even; just
      • SpenserAll as his straying flock he fed.
      • GayA damsel lay deploring
        All on a rock reclined.

    Synonyms

    Determiner

    1. Every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable).
      • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 1, Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path …. It twisted and turned,...and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights.
    2. All contestants must register at the scorer’s table.   All flesh is grass.   All my friends like classical music.
    3. Throughout the whole of (a stated period of time; generally used with units of a day or longer).The store is open all day and all night. (= The store is open throughout the whole of the day and the whole of the night.)I’ve been working on this all year. (= I've been working from the beginning of the year until now.)
    4. Everyone.
      A good time was had by all.
    5. Everything.
      • 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 3, Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.
    6. some gave all they had;  she knows all and sees all;   Those who think they know it all are annoying to those of us who do.
    7. (obsolete) any
      • Shakespearewithout all remedy
    8. Only; alone; nothing but.He's all talk; he never puts his ideas into practice.
      • ShakespeareI was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

    Noun

    all

    (countable and uncountable; plural alls)
    1. (with a possessive pronoun) Everything possible.She gave her all, and collapsed at the finish line.
    2. (countable) The totality of one's possessions.
      • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, pp. 37-8:she therefore ordered Jenny to pack up her alls and begone, for that she was determined she should not sleep that night within her walls.

    Derived terms

    need
    Terms derived from the adverb, determiner, or noun all

    Related terms

    Terms etymologically related to all

    Conjunction

    1. (obsolete) although
      • unknown date SpenserAll they were wondrous loth.
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