All

How to spell all

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce all

What does all mean?

1. determinerThe whole quantity or extent of; every one of a group.
2. pronounEveryone or everything; the whole number or amount.
3. adverbWholly or completely; entirely.

All in a sentence

• determiner

  All the staff received the same email this morning.

• pronoun

  All of us agreed to split the bill evenly.

• adverb

  The children were all alone in the house until the babysitter arrived.

• determiner

  She spent all her savings on the house deposit.

• pronoun

  That is all I can tell you for now.

• adverb

  By closing time the shelves were all but empty.

Where does all come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a very old native English word, descending from the Old English 'eall', meaning the whole quantity or every one of something. It traces back through the Proto-Germanic 'allaz', which is also the source of the German 'all' and the Dutch 'al', so the word has close cousins across the Germanic languages. The meaning has stayed remarkably steady for well over a thousand years: it has always pointed to totality, the entire amount or the complete set. Its spelling is short and phonetically simple, which is why the only real trap is its sound-alike, the tool called an 'awl'. Because 'all' is one of the most frequent words in English, it survived intact while many longer Old English words were reshaped by French and Latin borrowing.

How the word is built

• all (single Old English root, no affixes)