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whole ~ hole

[the same pronunciation]

“Whole”, as an adjective, means ‘all of something; not divided up into parts; not broken, damaged or defective; entire, complete; (of mathematics) not mixed or fractional; in good health’; as an adverb, it means ‘completely, absolutely’; as a noun, it is ‘a thing complete in itself, the entire amount or number, not in parts’,

e.g.

She lived her whole life in this town.

The children ate the whole cake in no time.

Nobody believed that she was telling the whole story.

The number 28 is a whole number.

The baby is feeling a whole lot better after the treatment.

The organisers are planning to introduce a whole new programme to attract the youth.

The whole of the estate belongs to the eldest son.

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“Hole”, as a noun, is ‘an empty or hollow space in something solid; a gap or space in something solid or screen, like a fence or wall, through which someone or something can pass; a weak part,  fault, flaw or defect in a plan, argument, idea, etc.; (in golf sport) a small hollow place in the ground into which a ball is to put to get points’ as a verb, it is ‘to dig or make a hollow place in something solid; to put or hit a ball into the hole in a game; {‘hole up’ means to hide in some secret place in order to escape some danger}’,

e.g.

His jacket is full of holes.

The fox slipped into the sheep pen through a hole in the mesh.

Tigerwood of the USA made the most holes in a single golf tournament.

Their lawyer’s argument is full of holes and they lost their law suit.

It’s a hard job to hole a tunnel through a mountain.

The police got a tip off that the notorious terrorist was holed up in an underground bunk.

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