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entire

UK/ɪnˈtaɪə/US/ɪnˈtaɪɚ/
adjectiveB1Very common — you will meet it every day · #502 of 15,258neutral

Entire means all of it, with nothing left out. She ate an entire pizza. The entire street lost power. He spent the entire afternoon looking for the keys that were in his coat.

It leans a little harder than whole, and it likes to stand in front of the noun: the entire building, my entire family, the entire point. It will not sit after the verb, so a cake is whole, never entire. Entirely is the adverb for completely: entirely my fault, not entirely true. The noun entirety turns up in one phrase worth knowing, in its entirety, meaning all of something taken together, as when a report is published in its entirety rather than in pieces.

Definitions of entire

  1. 1adjectiveentireWhole and complete, with no part missing or left out.B1

    “The entire village turned out for the funeral.”

    synonyms: whole, complete, full

Also accepted in games: whole, complete

Where it comes from

Entire came through Middle English entere from Anglo-Norman entier and Latin integrum, from integer, whole. That makes it a close relative of two words you already know: integer, a whole number, and integrity, the state of being undivided. Whole and unbroken sits underneath all three.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *teh₂g-

  2. Latin

    integrum

  3. Anglo-Norman

    entier

  4. Middle English

    entere

  5. English, today

    entire

Built from

  • integer · Latin — whole

From Middle English entere, enter, borrowed from Anglo-Norman entier, from Latin integrum, accusative of integer (“whole”). a doublet of entier and integer.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Adjectives, Sharper Adjectives

Practise this word

entire in the wild

  • In baseball, a complete game (CG) is the act of a pitcher pitching an entire game without the benefit of a relief pitcher.

    Complete game

  • Under Kurt Aland's supervision, the INTF collected almost the entire material that was needed.

    Institute for New Testament Textual Research

  • In its broadest sense, it may include the entire Malay Archipelago (Nusantara).

    Australasia

  • Only the portion of the will caused by the insane delusion fails, including potentially the entire will.

    Insane delusion

  • Previously, when Vermont was admitted in 1791, its act of admission said Vermont was to be "a new and entire member" of the United States.

    Equal footing

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the integer family

entire

entire — used about once every 42 pages · #502 · point at the bar for the others

  • entirely