Where does “wholesale” come from?
I appreciate the detailed instructions, but I notice a significant problem with the provided chain: it appears to conflate two entirely different etymologies (one for "whole/hole" and one for "oil"), which cannot both be correct for "wholesale."
The chain shows:
- English whole ← Middle English hole ← Old English hol ← Old English helan ← Latin oleum...
This doesn't make sense etymologically. "Whole" and "hole" have different origins, and neither connects to "oleum" (oil).
To write an accurate one-sentence origin summary, I would need a corrected etymological chain for "wholesale."
Could you verify the chain? For reference, "wholesale" should derive from "whole" (meaning complete/in bulk) + "sale," where "whole" comes from Old English *hāl (meaning sound/uninjured), not from the path shown here.
Would you like
wholesale (English): The sale of products, often in large quantities,...
Definitions
- The sale of products, often in large quantities,...
Ancestry of “wholesale”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | whole | Entire, undivided; Sound, uninjured, healthy;... |
| 2 | Middle English | hol | hollow, empty; concave, sunken; holey |
| 3 | Old English | hol | a hole, a hollow; calumny; slander |
| 4 | Proto-West Germanic | hol | hollow; hole |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | hulą | a hollow; depression; hole |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | hulaz | hollow |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | ḱel- | to cover; to incline |
Words derived from “wholesale”