[f. WHOLE a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being whole.
1. Soundness, freedom from injury; unimpaired state, integrity. Now rare and associated with other senses.
c. 1000. in Archiv für das Stud. d. neu. Spr., CXXI. 46. Willende & nellende, on ʓesundfulnysse & on þan halnesse.
[1340: see YHOLNESSE]
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., V. pr. iv. 127 (Camb. MS.). Þou weenyst þat it be diuerse fro the hoolnesse of science, þat any man sholde deme a thing to ben oother weys thanne it is it self.
1435. Misyn, Fire of Love, II. xii. 103. Holnes … of mynde, redynes of wyll,… in holy saules, suffyrs þame not dedly to synne.
1443–9. Pecock, Donet, x. (1921), 154. Þilk hool [3rd] comaundement in his ful hoolnes is reuokid, ȝhe, and forboden.
1450–1539. Myrr. our Ladye, 229. Neyther the godhed was mynysshed in the sonne ne the holenesse of the maydenhod in the mother.
c. 1460. Oseney Reg., 30. To be holde and to be had,… with all the integrite or hoolenysse in the which William of Saynte John … all þe foresaide thynges had and holde.
1883. H. Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. W. (1884), 336. Holiness, that is … wholeness.
1885. American, IX. 229. Rossa has too much regard for the wholeness of his skin to run that kind of a risk.
2. The character of having nothing wanting, or of having all its parts in due connection; completeness, perfection; unbroken or undivided state; the quality of constituting a complex unity.
(ME. all hoolenesse is f. all hool + nesse.)
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. cxvi. (1495), mm j b/1. All hoolenesse [orig. totalitas] and perfightnesse longyth to one & vnite.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), V. 279. The thynges seide … be seyde by anticipacion, that the hollenesse of the story may be conservede.
1550. Veron, Godly Sayings, D iij. He dydde both geue vnto vs an wholsom refection of his body, and of his bloud, and also did brieflie assoil that hard question of his wholnes.
1581. Marbeck, Bk. Notes, 95. The wholenesse and substaunce of Baptime doth consist in two things,… the Word and the Element.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 108. Those bedightings or affections that belong to it, as having parts; of which the wholeness … was one.
1744. Harris, Three Treat., II. ii. (1765), 64, note. As far as Perplexity and Confusion may be avoided, and the Wholeness of the Piece may be preserved clear and intelligible.
1830. W. Taylor, Hist. Surv. Germ. Poetry, I. 265. A book of tales,… without drift or wholeness of design: all is episode.
1849. Rock, Ch. Fathers, I. iii. 246. The unbroken wholeness of this stone was a symbol of the unbrokenness of the Church.
1877. Tennyson, Harold, I. ii. 114. Peace-lover is our Harold for the sake Of England’s wholeness. Ibid. (1886), Locksley Hall 60 Yrs. After, 101. Sweet St. Francis of Assisi … He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers Sisters, brothers.
b. The totality or total amount of something (obs.); something complete or unified (rare): = WHOLE sb. 1, 2.
a. 1340. Hampole, Ps. cxxxvi. 8. Of þe & in þe … is þe hoolnes of my ioy.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., Pref. A 4. These Three … taken all together, make up the Wholeness and Entireness of … The True Intellectual System of the Universe.
1856. Hawthorne, Engl. Note-bks. (1870), II. 191. What shapeless and ragged utterances Englishmen are content to put forth, without attempting anything like a wholeness.
