A piece of cloth of the full size as manufactured, as distinguished from a piece that may be cut off or out of it for a garment, etc.
1433. Rolls of Parlt., IV. 451/2. Hole Clothes, called brode Clothes.
1525. Wydow Edyth, in Hazl., Shaks. Jest-bks. (1864), 58. Might I be so bolde as of your hole cloth To desire you for to deliuer vnto me As much as wyll suffyse … To make a large Gowne and a Kyrtell.
1724. Act 11 Geo. I., c. 24 § 1. Every Woollen Broad Cloth,… whether … called an End or Half Cloth, or a Long or Whole Cloth.
b. fig. or in fig. context, esp. in phr. cut (etc.) out of (the) whole cloth, used in various senses; now esp. (U.S. colloq. or slang) of a statement wholly fabricated or false.
1579. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 77. I shalbe contente … to lende you the choyce of as many gentle wordes and loovelye termes as we … use to deliver ower thankes in. Choose whether you will have them given or yeeldid,… kutt owte of the whole cloathe, or otherwise powrid owte.
1594. Nashe, Christ’s T., 46. Two or three thousand pound…. When hee hath it all in his handes, for a month or two he reuels it, and cuts it out in the whole cloth.
1630. Brathwait, Eng. Gent., 333. They cut it out of the whole cloth, and divide their acres peece-meale into shreds.
1634. Peacham, Compl. Gentl., i. (1906), 5. The valiant Souldier … measureth out of the whole cloath his Honour with his sword.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, IV. vi. 177. This rent (not in the seam but whole cloth) betwixt these Churches.
1677. Hubbard, Pres. St. New-Eng., II. 1. The List or Border here being known to be more worth then the whole Cloth; That whole Tract of Land, being of little worth, unless it were for the Borders thereof upon the Sea-coast.
1843. C. Mathews, Writ., 68 (Thornton). Isn’t this entire story … made out of whole cloth?
1897. Fortn. Rev., July, 140. Absolutely untruthful telegrams were manufactured out of ‘whole cloth.’
1905. Vachell, Hill, xii. That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there.
